


Rock Bottom

by Maizeysugah



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe, Angst, BDSM, Bondage and Discipline, Bottom Harry, Daddy Issues, Daddy Kink, Dark Fairy Tale Elements, Dubious Consent Fantasy, Fluff, Humor, M/M, OOC, Shameless Smut, Smoking, Top Tom Riddle
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-03-18
Updated: 2016-05-31
Packaged: 2018-05-27 07:29:48
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 45,417
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6275269
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Maizeysugah/pseuds/Maizeysugah
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After a ten year absence from the wizarding world Tom Riddle is offered the position to teach Defence Against the Dark Arts after originally being denied it. Having already put a curse on the job for being rejected, and Dumbledore's added protections to keep Riddle in line, the job can never be filled by any other teacher as long as RIddle is still alive. </p><p>Now, during his seventh and final year at the school, Harry Potter sets his sights on bagging the nerdy and quiet old professor once and for all.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Half-Blood Letch

**Summer 1955**

 

Albus Dumbledore looked up from the book he was reading, drawn to the sound of someone knocking on the door leading to his office. “Enter,” he said, as if expecting this visit. He watched the young man move into the room and close the door behind him and wait for his cue to sit. Albus gestured to the chair on the other side of his desk. “Have a seat, Tom.” 

“May I remind you I prefer ‘Lord Voldemort’, sir.” 

“That’s right, I had forgotten, Tom.” 

Stowing his rage, the young man took his seat. “Why have you called for me?” he said without a greeting, deciding it wasn’t needed. He would no longer indulge the Headmaster of Hogwarts with feigned pleasantries, he was far past that after being rejected by him so pointedly during their last meeting. “My time is valuable, Dumbledore.” 

“Of course.” Dumbledore returned his attention to the book he had been reading. 

Tom Riddle cleared his throat in annoyance, perturbed that the Headmaster regarded him with such little respect. “Why am I here, Dumbledore? As I’ve said my time is-” 

“And yet you came,” Dumbledore interrupted as he lifted his head up to stare at the once-handsome young man. Dark experimentation over the last ten years after he left Hogwarts had taken a toll on his good looks. His features were waxy, as if he had permanent sweat forming on his brow, and the whites of his eyes were forever bloodshot. He was as pale as snow, tall and strong despite the troubled look etched on his features. He commanded ones presence when he graced a room, and only Albus seemed to be immune to his bewitchment. 

“Against my better…scratch that - against my very being, Tom, I have decided on offering you the position to teach the Defence Against the Dark Arts classes this term.” The ginger-haired man clawed at his own thigh to stop himself from sending this monster away again. Something, a power beyond his understanding, told him that it might be better to keep his enemy close rather than allow Tom Riddle to disappear again for another decade to inflict more underground terror on the wizarding world under the guise of “inspiring greatness”. 

It would not come without a price, however, but Riddle need not know that part of the deal. Dumbledore straightened up in his chair and thrust his right hand out. “The position is yours if you’ll have it.” 

Tom’s ominous features lit up with pure joy, something Albus was certain he had never seen from the man before. Tom Riddle’s expressions were always used to serve his own purpose, but this time it was clear that the young man could hardly contain the thrill of being allowed to stay within the castle, a place he felt was his true home. Tom grabbed the man’s hand and shook it tightly as he stood up from his chair. “Thank you, sir. You will not be sorry.” 

Dumbledore watched him leave the office and let out a ragged sigh. “I hope I’m not, Tom,” he mumbled as he looked back down to read over the words of the curse he had just placed on the former Head Boy. “I pray that this was the right choice.” 

And so fate was set. At that very moment neither knew that they had both ensured that the position of Defence Against the Dark Arts would never be filled with another teacher as long as Riddle was still alive.

* * *

 

**Fall 1997**

 

In a nook near a wall of bookcases, a handful of students from every house huddled around in a circle to get reacquainted with one another after the start-of-term feast and sorting ceremony. They had sneaked off and gathered together in mock studying, even though classes had not yet resumed. One of them had a story to tell them, a taboo secret he had kept to himself all summer long, but not by choice. 

“When was the first time I fantasised about sleeping with Professor Riddle? Well, it was probably near the end of our fourth year. During the Yule Ball, more specifically.” 

“We know all of that, Harry. And the fifth year with that prophesy nonsense at the Ministry…What about last term? Spill the beans already before I burst and tell the whole school what you’ve been up to!” 

“Shut up, Ron! None of you can tell anyone-You all promised!” 

“We won’t! Look, we swore on the Mudblood’s life we’d keep your secret, remember?” 

“I’ll show you “Mudblood”, prat!” 

“She’s joking! Tell her you’re joking, Parkinson!” 

“I was joking, Head Girl, relax.” 

“What’s “Mudblood” mean?” 

“It’s what they used to call magical folk who had two parent who were Muggles, Lovegood, way back in the olden days when they didn’t even have decent music or cheese-based potions. Really dark times then.” 

“Gods…sounds barbaric.” 

“Fine, just don’t call me that again, it’s disgusting and antiquated. Now let Harry tell his story, you prats, or I won’t help you punctuate your essays for Professor Snape this term.” 

“Go on, Potter, we’re listening.” 

“Okay…Anyway, it happened during that time when Malfoy was bullied into dumping fire slug ooze on the Headmaster.” 

“Bullied…me? Ridiculous.” 

“Quiet, Malfoy. Go on, Harry.” 

“Thanks, ‘mione. so he…well, ‘he’ meaning ‘we’…we wound up together alone in his chambers after Dumbledore shoved me out of his office so he could stop Draco, and he…well, it gets really complicated.” 

“Tell us, tell us, tell us! I’ve been dying to hear this all summer! Your Godfather sucks for keeping us from any sort of communication during the holiday.” 

“I know, I know…he’s still far too brassed off with your father for having him arrested - again. He grounded my owl and me, and sealed up the floo.” 

“Well, maybe he shouldn’t transform into an animal in public when he hasn’t registered! That’s not my father’s fault, someone has to follow the law.” 

“Enough, Draco! No one cares about your father being a glorified busybody, always snooping around where he shouldn't be. Ain’t that right, Weasley-Zabini?” 

“Hells yes, Zabini-Weasley! The old creeper needs to stay out of everyone's business, especially your mum's and my dad's already.” 

“Lovely. Get your high-fives out of the way and let Potter tell us what happened between Professor Riddle and he _already!_ ” 

“Thank you, Malfoy. Now, as I was saying, I found myself in his chambers, clutched tightly in his arms. This was the fifth time out of the six years I've attended Hogwarts where he and I wound up together in some sort of questionable circumstance at the end of the year. But this past time was a little bit different than the others. He…I mean 'we' kissed.” 

Hermione gasped so loudly the rest of the students jumped with surprise. 

Harry ignored it. “Riddle was all over me…speaking to me in Parseltongue, sipping at my throat…it was so bloody hot.” He looked around at all of the owl-eyed stares as he unravelled his sordid tale to them, having kept it to himself the whole summer but dying to tell them now. “Until he came to his senses and chucked me out after one single stupid little kiss. But!” He grinned brightly as his bright green eyes moved from one enthralled face to another. “I may not have sealed the deal with him that night, but I’ve got a whole year left to do it this time, and I've been doing my research. It’s only going to get better from this point on…”

* * *

In the office set off one floor up from the classroom where he instructed Defence Against the Dark Arts, a tall, sweaty-looking man repeatedly dipped his quill in an inkpot while he painstakingly used his perfect calligraphy to write a new letter to the Headmaster. He was asking him again to release him from the teaching position. He was getting on in years and felt that if he ever gave up trying he would die a teacher, having done nothing of worth in life. The long ashes from his cigarette fell onto the paper. He brushed them away and smeared the ink on the word “underhanded”. These letters had become standard fair for him over the decades. He so wanted to be free of this miserable position but found himself very unable to quit. 

This year, though, things would change to the positive for him, he was certain. Classes had just resumed after a long summer holiday, and after a brief lapse in judgement during the Yule Ball three years back, and then a few other times before school let out for the holiday break, he felt sure he could stop it from happening to him again. Tom Riddle felt focused enough on finding a way to break the curse he himself had created over the position, as well as strong enough to fend off the advances of the most relentless and spoilt child he had ever tutored before. At the end of nearly every year, minus the boy’s third year when his Godfather took over the spotlight, this boy and he had always found themselves entwined in some sort of macabre dance that only one of them came away from unscathed. 

He preferred this office over the Head-of-House office in the dungeons. This office was decorated with moving pictures of anything and everything pertaining to darkness, rather than the myriad of Slytherin symbols plastered all over the other. The man was fascinated with demons and Inferi and the deep dark side of magic. Unfortunately, for him, the Headmaster of the school prohibited him from bringing in the vile beasts to class or casting anything that had been deemed “too dangerous for students”. As a matter of fact, he found that he could do very little of anything deemed too dangerous while he resided there, whether he wanted to or not.

The symbol adorning everything Slytherin had been and always would be a problem for Riddle: snakes. His namesake once made him proud, now it merely hindered him. Every time one caught the man’s eye his language would flip to the magical interbred tongue native to his people. Everyone knew he was a Parselmouth, and most people thought of it as some sort of handicap the poor sod was inflicted with, all except for one. 

And though his pretty-boy good looks had long since been erased through dark experimentation in his youth, and the fact the man had forgotten how to love himself, he was quite statuesque and he still frightened practically every student and most of the teachers inside the school with his presence. After decades of losing his dream of finding a way to successfully quit teaching and resume his life trying to achieve the distinct title of Dark Lord, Tom found himself settling into the idea that this would never come to be and that he would die alone soon, most likely while teaching.

* * *

“Why are we meeting up here? This cubbyhole is not exactly secret, Harry,” Hermione Granger; Head Girl, Harry’s best friend and fellow housemate, asked him. 

Harry grinned. The Head Boy pointed to a closed door set off in the corridor of the second floor, and said, “Wait for it.” 

Within a minute the door opened and a very tall and stressed-out man stepped out into the corridor. He was occupied with folding the parchment he was holding and had not yet noticed the small gang of children watching him make his way toward them. 

Harry winked at Hermione before clearing his throat to catch the older teacher off-guard. “Afternoon, professor.” 

Tom Riddle froze. His pale cheeks reddened as he stood up tall so that he could straighten his tie and figure out a way to get out of this embarrassing situation without losing any small amount of dignity he had left. “Afternoon, Potter. And to you, Malfoy, Longbottom, Zabini-Weasley, Parkinson, Weasley-Zabini, Granger, Weasley-Zabini, Lovegood…” Having left his robes inside the office, Tom willed himself not to look too closely at Potter. "Is there a specific reason for this meeting here right outside of my office?"

"Prefect meeting," Harry replied.

Harry had become an object of Riddle's desire, he fitting the description of a prophesy that may have been recited about him. Another, born at the end of the seventh month, was an equal, a rival to him. Harry, and perhaps Neville Longbottom, could easily fit into this mold. On the downside, both were delicate and pretty, and both came from strong magical families whose parents had all thrice betrayed him over the years - during class. One of them could very well be his adversary. 

It was also possible that the first of two prophesies was not about him at all, to be sure. He had not become a Dark Lord, and he had never marked anyone, let alone someone as an equal. And about a year or so after the prophesy was spouted by fellow professor Sybill Trelawney, no one believed it was about Riddle anymore either. Speculation now assumed that it was most likely about the current and worst Dark Lord the wizarding world had ever encountered, instead. Tom, though, thought differently, having made himself as dark and evil as he could…which wasn’t very dark or evil at all, to his detriment. 

But if the first prophesy was about him, surely the second prophesy the seer had spouted out at Potter during their fourth year was about him, too. Tom truly was friendless and alone, as the prophesy stated. He was trapped in this nightmare of a teaching position with no escape. And he had been abandoned by all of his followers the moment he discovered he had been tricked, cursed, and forced to forever be the Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher. Perhaps this supposed servant from the prophesy was coming to rescue him. He would wait and dearly hope.

“So, uhh…I need to deliver this. Good day, students,” Riddle said, and tried to leave past them and make it to the staircase before- 

“Hey.” 

Tom screwed his eyes shut before looking down at the hand gripped on his jacket to halt his movement. “Hey, yourself. I really must get this to Dumbledore before it’s too late. You know how early he goes to bed on week days.” The note was promptly plucked from his fingers. 

The other students had scattered. Tom found himself standing very alone with Harry now. 

“It can wait,” Harry said, as he shoved the note carelessly down the front of his school trousers. The boy, who had grown so tall over the summer, shoved Riddle up against the wall and held him there by placing his hands on either side of the man’s waist to keep him from balking. He looked up into the older man’s dark blood-shot eyes while his tongue playing along his top lip. “Been thinking about you all summer…especially this.” Harry nudged up against the older man’s pelvic area. 

“Have you now?” Riddle replied, blinking. He turned his head away before Harry could kiss him. “Potter, that is not appropriate. How many times do I have to explain this to you?” When he looked back at Harry the boy was giving him bedroom eyes while he rutted up against him. Tom was certain that Harry had never bedded a thing besides his own hand before, and the idea of teaching him a lesson to stop these advances perked the man’s spirits. He opened his mouth, daring to allow himself a moment of nastiness and put the fear of Mordred into the boy but a deep baritone voice shocked them both out of their stances with a barking leap. 

“Mr Potter, I’m appalled.” 

Harry whirled around, causing his glasses to fall askew on his face. 

Riddle straightened his posture and gave fellow teacher Severus Snape a tip of the head. “Afternoon, Snape.” 

“Are you seriously going to put this man through another year of your shameless perversions, Potter?” The man had the boy by the ear, leading him over to the stairs that led to the first floor. “My apologies, Professor Riddle, I’ll remove this little lecher from your person so you can get on with whatever it was you were doing.” 

“Thank you, Professor Snape, I do appreciate the assistance.” Riddle avoided Harry’s pleading look for help as he passed he and Snape to get down the stairs first and catch Dumbledore before… “Oh, bloody hell.” He patted his pockets and glanced back up the stairs, seeing Harry surreptitiously jiggle the written letter to the Headmaster between his fingers as Snape ushered the boy down past him. Before Riddle could snatch it Potter shoved it back down the front of his pants and let Snape drag him off. 

Hardly the virile wicked man he was in his prime, Riddle sighed as he watched them move out of his vision and disappear from the corridor. He made his way back up the stairs, intent on rewriting a new letter of resignation.

* * *

After a long first week of classes, Tom lugged himself through the castle to make his way to the Slytherin dungeon. He stood before the stone wall and spoke the password to enter, and suddenly found himself engulfed in Snape’s robes while being dragged inside and barraged with questions. 

“So, how did the seventh-year class go this afternoon?” Snape was all over him, leading him to his private chambers. The man may have been the closest thing Tom had to a friend, so he allowed this forced action to happen, hoping Snape was about to offer him some sort of way to get out from under Harry Potter’s spell. 

“It went well,” he lied, hoping Snape wouldn’t catch it.

He did. “That’s not what I heard.” 

Finding himself dropped into a chair that was being situated in front of Snape so that he could clearly see every lie the man would try to make, Tom gritted his teeth as warning to stop the young professor before this line of questioning went too far. “What, Snape? What do you want to hear? That the Potter brat painted on the words “Fuck” and “Me” on his eyelids and conveniently lost his glasses so that he could squint and make not-entirely-subtle cat-calls under his breath at me throughout my lesson?” 

“When you put it that way, you make it sound immoral,” Severus remarked. He pulled another chair up and sat down in front of the Head of Slytherin so they could chat proper. 

Tom threw his hands up in exasperation. “Happy? What am I supposed to do about this wretched boy?” 

“Well, certainly not what you did with him during the Yule Ball two years back, or after the end-of-term feast last year,” Snape said smugly. “Lucky for you I’m the only adult in this school who understands what’s happening to you, or knows about it at all. And,” he added, thrusting a finger in the air to shut Riddle up before he started resisting the proposition he was about to make. “I can make this beneficial for both of us. I can teach you how to turn this child into never wanting to be alone with you again if you'd be so kind and do one teeny tiny little favour for me in return.” 

“Are you blackmailing me, Snape?” Tom pursed his lips. The nerdy innocence Riddle always portrayed melted away for that moment to allow the Slytherin in him to speak for him. 

Severus perked up, noting the man’s voice shift in pitch and depth. This was the Tom Riddle he enjoyed visiting with, this was the persona he admired. “Sneaky,” he mumbled under his breath while he gathered up the courage to ask him for this favour. “Does this feel like blackmail, or does it feel more like something a Slytherin would do for a fellow Slytherin, professor?” 

A half-smile cracked on the corner of Riddle’s lip. “What’s the proposal then?” 

“I respect you immensely, always have. Well, as you know, I had…issues…with those four Gryffindor beasts during my time as a student here; Black, Lupin, Pettigrew and…Potter. Mostly Black and Potter.” 

“I remember, and I do recall quashing every sordid event you experienced by them before it went too far,” Tom replied, nodding. “What about that?” 

“You did. Thank you, sir. That’s why I’m willing to help, but I also need help from you regarding them one more time.” Severus steeled himself before speaking again. “The girl from Gryffindor…Potter’s mother, Lily,” Snape said. He took a shaky breath and willed himself to finish. “She was my girlfriend first. She was and is my only true love. I should have been the boy’s father. That wretch, James Potter, he used dark magic to steal her away from me. He pretends to be some type of good guy on the surface, but all he is is a common thief. He stole my girl, I want her back.” 

Tom grunted under his breath. He did not have time to waste on silly men and their useless love lives. Love was for plonkers. There was only time for teaching and for trying to quit. “Tell me what you want from me, Snape. And then tell me how you plan on making this Potter situation I’m plagued with go away.” 

As if being singled out and addressed by his favourite celebrity, Snape erupted with glee. He dropped out of his seat to his knees in front of the man, gripping his wrists. “Anyone with a half-a-brain knows that you are the most powerful wizard to ever grace this castle. Your skill in spell casting and potion making knows no other master. Well, besides me with potions and Dumbledore with casting, that is.” He cleared his throat in order to continue, ignoring Riddle’s growing tetchy glare. 

“I can’t make the woman fall in love with you, Snape, No matter how powerful I am,” Riddle reminded him. He jerked his wrists free and crossed his arms over his chest. “Even you should know that.” 

Snape ignored the man’s passive aggressive retorts. “I am well aware. What you can do, though, is undo the spell Potter has cast on her so that she will realise that she’s been duped and come back to me.” 

Tom looked away for a moment to roll his eyes. He was supposed to be a Dark Lord, not some sort of anti-cupid. He could hardly believe that his former pupil and current mother of the Potter snot could fall in love with this greasy, stringy-haired man prostrating himself like an idiot in front of him. The pretty Gryffindor Head Girl had most likely chosen Potter over Snape for very basic reasons: James Potter was taller, more handsome, smarter, charming, not to mention far richer than the potions professor, but who was he to argue if it would get the man’s  almost-son off of his back. “Fine. Say I am able to reverse this charm or potion-induced fancy. How will you get her son to stop trying to hump my leg like a dog every time he sees me?” 

“Ooh, sir,” Snape cooed, “I’ve always known you were far more wicked and devious than you let on. I’ll tell you how to ditch the brat right after you tell me how you plan on breaking the bewitchment on Lily.” 

“Well,” Riddle admitted, “I would need to examine her to see what was done to keep her smitten with the elder Potter. She would also need to be isolated, at least from him, for about a week.” 

Snape’s breath hitched. He shivered in the man’s presence as if Riddle were a god. “Yes, I can arrange that! We’re both still very close! Her sister has property around London. I could-” 

“I can’t leave the school for more than a few hours at a time,” Riddle informed him. “I uh…err…am unable…I have all my things here. I can’t leave them unattended.” _Or consciously stop myself from returning, but you don’t need to know that part, you nosey little monster._ “I can’t trust that a student might break into my stores or chambers. There are poisonous substances, cursed objects, ghouls in the wardrobe, Dementors circling over my bed, my snake, my undergarments…” 

“If I can get her there, you - yes, you, sir!” Snape shouted, as he rose to his feet and bent down to meet the other man’s eye. “You are strong enough to ward up the place so that she is unable to leave during the time you need to keep her away from Potter. I believe in you!” 

“I’ve never seen you this…alive before, Snape. You really care about this silly girl that much?” Riddle asked him, far more intrigued now with the potions master than he had ever been before. The man was truly a Slytherin, like him, in petty much every way. A smile curled his lips. The idea of trapping Lily Potter, formally student Lily Evans, would be a pleasure. “I’ll do it.” He halted the man’s attempt at kissing him with a palm to the forehead. “Now tell me how you plan on stopping Potter from stalking me.” 

“He’s a spoilt little brat, sir. He is entitled and has probably never been told ‘no’. You simply need to give him what he wants…in a bad way. He thinks he’s in love with you because he cannot have you and, let’s face it, you are a bad boy,” Snape informed him. “We’ve all heard the tales, the rumours about you from the past. You ruled this school while you attended, had all the teachers smitten, fooled. But you are one to walk on the dark side of the moon, the best and brightest in generations. Everyone suspects this about you, thinks you are far more evil than you let on. Spoilt little heathens who have it all always go for the bad boys, sir…Why you chose to teach rather than take over the world is beyond me- If you can't change Harry Potter, turn him into a model child, no one can.” 

“Whatever you’ve heard about my past is irrelevant,” Riddle interrupted. “My chosen profession has been fulfilling.” 

 _Lies._  

“It has alway been my dream.” 

_More lies._

“I enjoy it immensely.” 

 _I’m going to vomit if he says anything else this syrupy._ “Of course, sir,” Snape said as he straightened himself up and returned to his seat. “My advice to you is to treat Potter like a toy. Perhaps break it, and make him not want to stalk you anymore.” 

“Advice?” Tom sat forward in his chair, so that his nose was mere millimetres away from Snape’s. His blood-shot eyes were narrowed to mere slits. “You want me to remove Lily Potter’s love spell and you offer me useless advice in exchange? Forget it.” 

“Wait!” Snape stopped the man from standing by throwing himself at him and landing in his lap. “What do you want of me, sir? I’ll do anything!” 

“Anything?” Riddle adjusted himself in the chair so that he felt less awkward about balancing the potions professor in his lap. “Hold that thought. I’ll come up with something reasonable when the time comes. For now - keep your big mouth shut about anything that happens between Potter and me. I will call upon you when needed. In the meantime, get Lily Potter away from her husband.” He shoved Snape off of his lap and stood up, then pointed to the door. “Out.” 

As the door closed behind Snape, a loud noise suddenly filled the chambers. Riddle sighed as he crossed the room to silence the outburst. He steadied the vibrating Secrecy Detector buzzing next to his bed and propped his fists on his hips as he stared blankly into the depths of the room. “I know you’re there, Potter. Show yourself.” 

Harry appeared from thin air as his cloak pooled at his feet. He grinned innocently back at the professor. “Were you expecting me?” 

“I was,” Riddle replied. “But not in a good way. You sneak in when Snape left?” 

“I did,” Harry said. He was dressed in his pyjamas and a pair of Gryffindor socks as he shuffled toward the older man. “Been thinking about how good you kissed. Wanted to have that again…and more.” 

Tom backed up to avoid him. “You know why that happened, Potter. You most likely spiked my pumpkin juice with a weak love potion.” 

“Oh, is that what you tell yourself? What about the almost-kiss the year before that? Or the “I’d kiss you if you were grown up” speech after the Yule Ball!? I trick you then, too?” 

“Yes, of course you did!” Tom hissed back. He felt his back collide with the door that led to the bedroom. He puffed out his chest so that he did not look like an injured animal caught in a trap while Harry encircled his waist to nuzzle against him. “You were all over me! I let myself get carried away, let my guard down. I'll take responsibility for that, but nothing more.” 

“No, professor, that’s not true,” Harry told him in earnest. He curled up closer, nudging Riddle’s shoulder with his chin to keep his interest on him. “You let yourself be you.” 

“I didn’t! You cursed me or something.” Tom's uncertain words slowed and stopped as he looked down into Harry’s eyes. He cupped the boy’s chin while he clenched his teeth. “You know you tricked me.” 

“You refuse to admit you want me, liar,” Harry replied swiftly. He reached up, gripping Riddle’s wrist to wrench his hand away from his face. “But you keep telling yourself you don’t if it makes you feel better about your pathetic life.” He took a step back, incensed that the man continued this facade, this blatant lie that he was not mutually attracted to him, intent on leaving his chambers for the last time and never returning - but an arm slipped around his waist and Tom yanked him back into his embrace. 

“Maybe you are right,” Riddle said while tipping Harry over his arm to kiss him. The wise words of the potions professor crept back into his mind. _Take the toy and break it._ Having never once been in any sort of relationship worth a wad of spit before, Riddle was unsure how reverse seduction actually worked - but he was very willing to have fun with it. His lips hovered over Harry’s. They parted, but not to kiss him. “I want a vow from you before this goes any further, Potter. Swear to me that you will never tell another living soul about anything that happens between us from this moment on, and I may very well indulge you in your sick, depraved fantasy.” 

Missing the swirling smoke surrounding them both, Harry felt his stomach flutter. “I swear,” he blurted back and closed his eyes in wait for the kiss. The smoke enveloped them both like a thick curtain before it dissipated into nothing. 

Instead of kissing the boy, Riddle pulled his arms back and let Harry fall to the floor. “Now take your cloak and go to bed.” 

“What?” The boy adjusted his glasses as he stood back up and moved to gather up the invisibility cloak his father had entrusted him with. “Are you seriously chucking me out again?” 

“You want to get to me, boy, you’ll need to do more than show up hidden under that cloak.” Tom opened his bedroom door and stepped inside to watch Harry seethe with frustration as he stomped over to the chamber door. “See you in class next week. Try not to embarrass yourself during it this time.” 

“Fuck off,” Harry hissed under his breath and slammed the door as he left Tom’s chambers to skulk back to the Gryffindor tower. 

“Indeed,” Tom said, as he closed his bedroom door so he could properly dress for bed. “You’ll be completely fucked off once I’m through with you.” His pet snake, Nagini, curled up around him as he nestled down to fall asleep. He kissed her on the nose and wished her a good night. She was the only thing he had ever loved, the only thing he ever would love…or so he thought.


	2. Any Given Friday

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After a month or so of playing hard-to-get, Professor Riddle finds himself trapped in the clutches of his object of desire, and yes, in the good way. Certainly he won't screw this up, right?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The part where Hermione's vision of a boggart changing was originally from the third Harry Potter book and not me in any way, shape or form. I had added it as filler and intended on changing it but I have so little time to devote to writing as of late, but I may go in and change it in the near future.

 

 **Friday Morning**  

“Now, I’m not saying that every single Ravenclaw is or will become some kind of villain. What I am saying is every villain that attended Hogwarts out there was in Ravenclaw.” 

Defence Against the Dark Arts class was always interesting. For Harry Potter, at least. The boy was in his element in the presence of the man of his fancy. Another week, another chance to conquer the teacher. It was something he was skilled at, besides being an amazing Seeker and spell caster. The boy had many talents, all of his teachers noticed, but the boy was spoilt rotten, nearly as spoilt as his close-knit friends, the Stepford-brothers Blaise and Ron. 

“Even the most wicked of them all, the evil Lord G-Roy and his Darkharts was a Ravenclaw, sir?” 

Harry’s father, James, was an arrogant and boastful student during his time at Hogwarts. If anything, his now wife Lily had grounded him and molded him into something passable as a human being. Harry, Riddle felt, had a lot of these same characteristics but also showed a small amount of self-control that Riddle assumed had also come from his mother. It was obvious that his parents coddled him, pampered him, let him do whatever he wanted…but only to an extent. Pleasantly enough, Tom could see the subtle hints of restraint before the boy took things too far. That was probably the most control any of the rich snobby students he had tutored over the years ever cared to show, and for that he could admire Harry for at least something. 

“Yes, miss Parkinson, especially Gilderoy Lockhart! And most of his wicked followers, excluding your mother and step-mother, Mr Weasley-Zabini and Zabini-Weasley, um, I do believe she was a Gryffindor.” 

Every student, to Riddle, no matter who their families were, had the potential to achieve greatness. After decades of teaching all walks of magical life inside the school, the once iron-rigid thought that blood-status actually meant anything had long since flitted away from the man’s thoughts. Those antiquated ideals were easily disproved time and time again for his benefit and he used that knowledge to teach himself, as well as his students, how to use and perfect anything the good lord gave them. 

“Don’t say his name!” 

So, although James Potter was a pure-blooded wizard, it meant nothing to Riddle. The boy was no better than his son, a Half-Blood, or his wife, a Muggle-Born. And yet he still rose up faster than any other more deserving witch or wizard in their world of politics, not that Riddle cared anymore about blood-status, he did not. He was not for it or against it, he just didn’t waste energy on it anymore. 

James had become a prominent political figure and was perhaps the future Minister of Magic. James was front and centre of all things politically correct or incorrect, depending on what ideal served him and his ilk best. And he made certain that his way of thinking was swaying the masses in his direction. He was and would always be an all around pain in the arse, thought Riddle. It would be delicious to discover that the man had, in fact, duped that hapless woman into marrying him…and perhaps frighten his son enough to back off and quit bothering him once and for all. 

“We mustn’t be afraid to speak the man’s name, Brown. Gilderoy Lockhart, evil or not, is still just a wizard.” 

“Is he really evil, though? My father thinks he might have the right idea.” 

The day's topic, speaking about the threatening force trying to take over the world, Lord G-Roy was seen as an ominous figurehead. Professor Riddle knew different. In his mind the man was a sham artist, a thief who took credit for a lot of wicked things he did not accomplish himself. He profited off of other’s hard work and endless hours of dark experimentation. Riddle was positive that Lockhart had never once cast a single Unforgivable or taken the life of even a house-fly; the man’s visage showed no signs of doing anything more than moisturising, to be quite honest. 

“Of course your father would think that, Potter. He’s a politician, yes?” 

“My father thinks G-Roy’s a pig.” 

“Your father’s a pig, Malfoy!” 

“Eat me, Zabini-Weasley!” 

“Students, kindly shut up before I get angry.” 

“We’re all sorry, professor.” 

“I didn’t mean you, Miss Granger. And you do not have to apologise for the whole class.” 

Now, standing over the younger Potter’s desk, he felt the intense stare of the young man burning holes through his robes. For a brief moment he met Harry’s eye in hopes to watch the boy’s cheeks redden while he died of embarrassment. Unfortunately, he did not. In fact, Riddle found himself unable to maintain eye-contact with the horny little devil once he began nibbling on the tip of his thumb. The boy had drawn a tiny snake in magenta ink on the pad and kept slipping the digit in and out of his mouth as if it were a phallus. The ink smeared and stained his lips bright pink, making him appear even prettier than Riddle thought possible. The boy pressed his thumb against his now proffered tongue, the tip curled around it as he drew it up the length of it. 

Riddle snapped his lips shut and moved out of Potter’s vision to save a bit of face. He cleared his throat and pointed to the blackboard so he could get on with his lesson. _“~Your father is the one who has the right idea, Draco; law and order is the only true answer when dealing with the masses. Someone other than Potter’s father and his brood of propaganda-administers needs to understand what those two words truly mean. Now, let’s go over the instructions - What!? What can’t wait until after I’ve finished explaining the lesson, Miss Granger?~”_  

Hermione dropped her hand back on her desk and cringed at the man’s sour tone. “I’m sorry to interrupt, professor, but you’re speaking in Parseltongue again,” she replied through a cringe. “None of us can understand you.” 

“Ah.” He glanced around the room at all of the owl-eyed and sympathetic faces staring back at him. All of them afraid or embarrassed for him due to his unfortunate infliction of Parseltongue, all except Potter, that is. He alone seemed to be getting off on it. 

The mousy Gryffindor girl pointed to a thick notebook and opened it to a bookmarked page. “Although I have been doing my utmost to translate the snake-language into English, have been since my first year. It’s taken forever but now we can all-” 

“That’s quite alright, Miss Granger,” Tom interrupted. He watched Harry’s eyes light up as his interest piqued staring at the notebook in his friend’s hands. He removed the notebook from her person and tossed it in the recycling bin. He ignored Hermione’s horrified expression as best he could, merely patting her hand with the tips of his fingers to comfort her. “Your brilliance is again duly noted, dear girl, but some languages are better left untranslated. Now, where was I?” 

Today’s lesson was a special one. Special in the way that he would be getting his rocks off when Harry Potter failed and he would make an example of him for his own mental sanity. Although he was not allowed to bring in a real Dementor to show the students, he was allowed to procure a boggart, so that he could see first hand what frightened the students most…particularly Harry. Once he had that information on hand he would force the boggart to transform into a Dementor by using fellow teacher and unwilling participant, Sybill Trelawney, to cause the dark creature to become one. 

At that moment, the Divination teacher stepped into the room. Her large magnified eyes scanned over the place while she mumbled, “I got a letter to be here at ten o’clock…oh dear.” Her eyes nearly popped from her head the instant they landed on Riddle, as if she had only just realised that this was his classroom and that he was the one who sent for her. “I’ve make a grave mistake. If you’ll excuse me, I must be going!” The door behind her slammed shut and refused to budge while she jerked on the knob, desperate for freedom. 

“Ah, there you are, Sybill.” Riddle was at the door and escorting the twitchy woman over toward the opposite side of the room before she could escape. He deposited her in his high-backed chair and wordlessly glued her to it. “We’ve been expecting you. Wait here, dear, I’ll require your assistance post haste. Hang tight.” 

“Oh, uh, Professor Riddle, I…” she groaned while she wiggled around in the seat. “I suppose…” 

Riddle ignored this and addressed the class. “Everyone stand with your wand at the ready. Gryffindors over here behind me, and Slytherins over there in front of me.” He turned on a heel to face a large weathered trunk sitting on the opposite side of the room. “Spread out, everyone.” He went on to explain what a boggart was and what it did, and then showed them how to combat their fears with a counter spell designed specifically for banishing the vile beasts by turning them into something that would produce laughter from the caster. He, himself, was unable to successfully perform the spell but that was not a problem. He always had one of the best and brightest perform it for him after simple instruction on how to cast it. 

Well into the start of the year, it was clear that three of the twenty students who needed to take this class were far superior in performing magic than the others: Hermione Granger, Draco Malfoy and, sadly, Harry Potter. He looked behind him and scooted Hermione over to stand in front of him. “Hold your wand up and swish it as if you’ve written the lowercase letter ‘U’ with joined up writing…like this.” He whipped the tip of his wand through the air to show the class. “And say the incantation _‘Riddikulus!’_ as you perform the act.” 

“Isn’t this a bit…juvenile?” Draco Malfoy asked the professor. “My grandmother taught me how to banish boggarts when I was thirteen, sir.” 

The classroom simpered and giggled until Professor Riddle clenched his teeth and banished the room to ice-cold stillness. Every student began to whimper as the cold air of hatred resonating off of him permeated their uniforms. After a moment of contemplation Riddle lifted the spell so that he could continue. “This is only the first part, but thank you for interrupting me before I could explain that, Mr Malfoy. I’ll be seeing you after dinner so you can clean up the exploded toad guts the first year students are now going to decorate the walls and ceiling with this afternoon.” Before Malfoy could react, he added, “Giant purple toad guts,” which made the task sound all the more gruesome. 

All of the other students cringed and looked sympathetically over at Draco, who sulked where he stood, helpless to get out of this punishment. 

Again, he whipped his wand about, but this time at the trunk that had been flopping around in its spot since the start of class. The lid flew backward and a blob of gooey matter flew up into the air. It began to swivel and spasm as it took the form of Professor McGonagall holding out a piece of parchment with a large ‘T’ for troll stamped on it. Hermione gasped and tried to back away but Professor Riddle eased her worry with a well-placed hand on her shoulder so that he could whisper a quick reminder in her ear. Within seconds she had cast the spell to banish the beast, changing the parchment the woman was holding into an award. 

And so it went on for several minutes, the boggart changed forms many, many times through fear and banishment, that is until it was Harry’s turn to face and conquer his demons. The spell holding Trelawney to the chair lifted and she rose up and moved toward the trunk without thinking. The boggart sensed the woman’s greatest fear and quickly turned into fellow professor Tom Riddle. 

“Now that’s ridiculous.” Growling under his breath, Tom prodded the woman and flashed her a charming smile to lighten her unconscious anxiety over the older man, so that her fear of Dementors would overtake it and emerge through the boggart properly. Again, Riddle was very unable to produce a Patronus due to not having any good thoughts, but there was always Granger to use in these instances. 

He shoved Potter toward the monstrosity as it began to shape shift, and watched the boy hold his wand up in defence. But again, the boggart did not take the form of a Dementor. Instead, it sensed the closer wizard’s worst fear and emerged as something far more frightening; a very tall snake-like man in the shade of pure-white, dressed in ceremonial robes. It bared its pointed teeth at the seventeen-year-old as it raised its wand to strike him down with the killing curse. 

The lights in the room extinguished. Smoldering mist swirled around everyone. Tom gasped, Harry went cold, swooned and dropped to a dead faint on the floor. The rest of the class huddled together in horror as their teacher rushed toward the monster that was now stooped over the unconscious boy, to stop it from murdering Harry before it was too late. “Begone, creature!” he hissed at the wretched thing as he approached and snatched the boy up into his arms. The boggart shifted one more time before Professor Trelawney banished it permanently back into its trunk; taking on the form of Professor Riddle again. But this time he was an old, dying man, still teaching the class just before he dropped dead in that very spot he was crouched next to. 

This act Riddle committed was unexpected and foolish. Tom knew he had been reckless for the sake of having a go at an innocent student, even if he was a right nuisance. He should have never tried something like this without proper testing. “Class dismissed!” he cried as he looked over his shoulder at the cowering pupils still clumped up together. “Get help!” he ordered the other professor. 

He cuddled the unconscious boy in his lap while he waited for someone to come to their aid, unsure why he did not levitate Potter and take him to the hospital wing on his own. Never before had something as silly as fainting in front of him stirred such raw emotion inside him, but it intrigued him now. This limp pretty boy curled up in his lap actually meant more to him than he’d ever thought possible. Whether that was in a good way or bad way, he did not know, nor did he care…yet. 

Harry’s eyes opened after a pat to his cheek. He looked up at the man coddling him and smiled. “Hey there, sexy, what’d I miss?” 

Riddle huffed and stood the boy up. “Let’s go, Potter,” he said. He took the boy by the arm and led him out of the room to escort him to the hospital wing.

* * *

 **Friday Afternoon**  

Sitting beside a stand that continuously flashed the colours of Gryffindor as if to taunt him, Tom Riddle brooded in his seat. It felt like it was over a bazillion degrees outside, with little to no breeze to balance out the heat. It didn’t help that Snape, who was sitting beside him in the Slytherin spectator stands, kept elbowing him every few seconds while he pointed at Draco Malfoy flying around on his broom and said _“that’s my boy!”_. He watched Minerva McGonagall in the Gryffindor stands across from them, the Transfiguration professor and Head-of-House to Gryffindor. Periodically, she would toss him a rude gesture. She also encouraged her house students to follow suit. 

“You’ve really matured over the years!” he shouted at her through his hands cupped over his mouth. Personally, he only knew her as a teacher, a very competitive teacher who always tested him in every way possible. She had graduated the year before he took the position of Defence Against the Dark Arts so he never was her teacher, he thanked Merlin. But she was always an adversary, a powerful witch who enjoyed besting Riddle whenever she could. “And to train all of your mini-monsters to do the same is some feat, Minerva. How proud you must be!” 

Minerva said nothing, she merely pointed to the scoreboard that clearly stated that Gryffindor was winning. 

“Ignore that harpy,” Snape reminded him. “She’s psychotic, always has been.” 

Riddle had not yet acquainted himself with this side of the woman as he had never attended a Quidditch game before. This was Snape’s chosen task. Snape handled anything sporty when it came to Slytherin House, whereas Riddle covered the academic competitions. He was far more comfortable in that respect. 

Snape nudged the man in the ribs, “Look there, between McGonagall and Dumbledore,” he said in Riddle’s ear while he pointed to a figure sitting between the Gryffindor Head-of-House and the school’s headmaster. “It’s Lily. She’s really here! She came!” 

Riddle’s eyesight wasn’t what it used to be. He shielded the blazing sun with a hand over his eyes while he squinted across the pitch and found the former Gryffindor Head Girl perched prettily in her seat. She was wrapped up in house colours while she screamed at her son to watch for the Golden Snitch. 

And then it happened, the thing Riddle had dreaded would happen if he allowed himself to be dragged out to the pitch to watch the game: Harry Potter flew into his partition on his Firebolt. He blew the man kisses and winked at the Slytherin Head-of-House without shame, and then carelessly reached up over his head and snagged the object he had been chasing, to Malfoy’s obvious detriment, and kissed the object before tossing it into Riddle’s lap. 

The crowd went wild at a recap of the action that now appeared on a floating screen for everyone in the stands to see. 

Riddle felt his cheeks burn. He let Snape lead him out of the stands before a riot broke loose between the rival houses. He could hear McGonagall screeching in the backdrop and Lily Potter hooting at her son despite the roar of the crowd. “Get me the hell out of here, Snape,” he hissed in his colleague’s ear. “Right now.” 

“You forgot the snacks the headmaster had sent over for you, sir, not to mention _this._ ” Snape held up the Golden Snitch Harry had gifted him, the one he had conveniently left on his seat, and dropped it in the palm of Riddle’s hand. He pocketed the sack of pumpkin fizz. 

Riddle unravelled the Slytherin scarf wrapped around his neck and threw it on the ground. Sod Slytherin for not fucking winning and letting that awful boy humiliate him. Again. 

Someone coming up behind him snagged it as they ran up and handed it back to him. 

“You dropped this, sir.” 

Tom clenched his teeth. He took back the scarf. “Thank you, Potter, you devil-of-a-boy. Now if you’d be so kind as to stop following me - Scratch that…” He turned to the boy and stopped, but shoved Snape on to keep moving along with traffic. He grabbed Harry by the collar and moved him out of the crowd of people heading back to the school and walked him out toward the owlry. “Shouldn’t you be celebrating with your ilk?” 

“How can I do that when you’re making me go with you to somewhere private?” Harry replied. 

Riddle froze. He dropped his hands and shoved them into his trouser pockets instead. “I didn’t want to speak of this in public. It’s bad enough the whole school got to watch you have your fun at my expense up there - twice.” 

Harry batted his eyelashes as he edged up against the teacher. “My mum is here. I wanted her to see me catch the Snitch and give it to my sweetheart. I’m assuming she thought it would be given to some silly girl. Can’t wait to hear what she says about that.” 

“Oh yes, I can imagine the things she has to say about you giving it to me…Especially to Dumbledore.” Riddle closed his eyes and shook his head in disbelief at the gull the boy had in taking liberties with his personal space. “If I’m not sacked, surely you’ll be sent to Durmstrang.” 

“She’s a zombie,” Harry confessed. The word intrigued Riddle and Harry picked that up easily. “She’s never done a thing for herself, always on my father’s arm like a thing to show off, like a trophy. I just wanted to give her a jolt. It’s really hard to shock her. And wouldn’t you think the image of you, a big-bad scary teacher and sexily so, taking full advantage of her only child, the boy she adores so much, might give her that…jolt?” And as he said it, Harry pressed his pelvic bone into Riddle’s niceties, giving the teacher a jolt. 

“I would think it might,” Riddle replied, only half-listening to or fending off Harry, who was currently trying to unzip his trousers while the boy bobbed and ducked from invading hand-slaps. He stood Harry up against the inside wall of the owlry entrance to put an end to his actions. “Have you no sophistication at all, Potter? Anyone could walk in here at any moment and think we were doing untoward things.” He shoved Harry’s hands behind his back and held them there in one of his, while his other hand cupped the boy’s chin to force him to look at him. “I want to see the truth from you, boy. Look at me.” 

Harry stopped struggling and let the man do whatever he wanted to him, which was still and only preventing the boy from molesting him or looking away. “What truth would you like to see me say, gorgeous?” 

“Gorgeous…right.” Tom cleared his throat, intent on getting some real answers about his mother and her supposed zombie-like living status. “Does your father ever brew or make potions at home?” 

“Of course,” Harry said. Although trapped, Harry’s meagre struggling forced Riddle to lean in and use his larger size to hold the boy in place against the wall. The struggling commenced, but just enough to feel the man’s warmth penetrate through his Quidditch uniform. “Gods, is that a snake in your pocket or are you just happy-” 

“Shh.” Riddle clamped a hand over the boy’s mouth and shushed him, hearing the sounds of breaking twigs and crushed mouse skeletons littering the owlry floor. “Did you hear that? We’re not alone.” Before anyone saw them, Riddle backed away from Harry and returned his hands to his pockets. “We’ll continue this discussion another time, Potter. As you were.” 

Lily stepped into the room with a great big smile set on her pretty face. “Professor Riddle, how lovely it is to see you again.” She moved in, invading his person, and hugged him before he could back away. 

“Aww, c’mere, both of you!” Harry exclaimed and joined in. His hand slipped down and grabbed the professor’s lovely backside, knowing there was nothing he could do to stop him. He felt the man flinch against his cheek and snickered. “Isn’t this wonderful? The three of us all together on the same spot at the same time.” 

“Oh Merlin…Err, how are you, Lily?” Riddle said as he peeled them both away and stepped backward into the depths of the owlry to put some much-needed space between them, and glanced at Harry with as much hatred as he could muster while the boy’s mother smoothed out her clothing. 

Harry covered his mouth to hide his sinister glee. 

“Always so tough on me, he was,” Lily told her son as she hugged the boy as tight as she could. 

Seeing Harry struggle to breathe gave Riddle a mild sense of amusement. 

She looked up at the man towering over her while she nudged her boy. “Professor Riddle gave me a real challenge, my favourite professor.” 

“Me?” Riddle blinked. No one had ever said that about him before, especially not in his presence. 

“By far, sir,” she said as she hugged him again. 

“Yes, he’s quite challenging,” Harry said as he eyed the uncomfortable man again trapped in his mother’s vice-grip-of-a-hug. He noted the sweat on his brow leaking down into his collar and snorted. “He has tested me to the very limit, mummy, you would not believe it.” 

Tom sneered back at him and cleared his throat once Lily finally released him. “I really must be getting back to the castle. It was good seeing you again, Lily.” 

“Of course, professor. We won’t keep you,” Lily replied. “I’ll see you at dinner this weekend, we’ll catch up then.” 

Harry blinked. “Huh?” 

Tom froze. “I beg your pardon? Dinner?” 

“Sweet Severus will fill you in on the details, I’m sure. He set the whole thing up. I can’t wait to see what his big surprise is!” 

“Eww, no, not Snape, mum! Dad won’t allow-” 

“Your father doesn’t need to know!” Lily promptly shot back, as if expecting her son’s objections before he uttered them, Riddle noted. The pretty softness in her face contorted with anger. “He doesn’t run our lives for us, despite what he thinks. Now, I don’t want to hear another word of this. You will be on your best behaviour and not embarrass me in front of Professor Riddle, Severus and the family.” 

“Yes, mummy,” Harry said, bowing his head. “I’ll be good.” 

“You wouldn’t mind bringing Harry along with tomorrow, would you, professor? He doesn’t do well with Severus alone. Sometimes he loses him and I would be forever in your-” 

“Of course I will,” Riddle said, stopping her grovelling before it took off. He put an arm around Harry’s shoulders and pulled him up next to him. “Potter and me have a wonderful rapport.” 

Harry, grinning from ear to ear suddenly, nodded to his mother to back him up. 

Delighted, Lily kissed Harry good-bye and pinched his cheeks bright pink. “And you keep those grades up and stay out of everyone’s hair or I’ll paddle your little behind. Do you hear me?” 

“Mum!” Harry exclaimed from embarrassment. He watched his mother giggling as she left the owlry. The instant she was gone he centred his lecherous gaze back on his teacher. “We’re alone again, professor.” Using the opportunity of being in physical contact with the older man, he pivoted on a heel to encircle the man’s waist. His head tipped back and his eyes closed. “Mmm, where were we?” 

“We were at that part where I was going to say that I’ll paddle your little behind, too, if you aren’t back inside the school before I count to three,” Riddle said as he peeled Harry off of his person. 

Harry wagged his eyebrows at the red-faced professor. “Is that a promise?” 

“With a Beater’s bat wrapped in barbed wire,” Riddle added, and held up his thumb, “One…” 

Harry rolled his eyes. “Fine, you bloody troll, I’m moving.” He turned to leave the owlry and said under his breath, “I’ll have my way with you tonight anyway…” 

“What was that?” Riddle asked him. 

Harry shrugged. “Nothing, nothing.”

* * *

 **Friday Evening**  

Two other alumni on the Slytherin side of the school were also in the stands for the Quidditch match earlier that day, so they could watch their son, Draco, play. Lucius and Narcissa Malfoy caught up with and had cornered their old Head-of-House, and would not take no for an answer when they asked him to join them at The Three Broomsticks Inn for a drink. Or many, many drinks. 

Now, being dragged back to the school via a secret passage through the Room of Requirement, Tom looked at the woman holding his right side up, feeling her suddenly shrink in size and strength. Instead of seeing Mrs Malfoy, Pansy Parkinson grinned back at him. “Hey, professor. Try not to spew on me again, alright? We’re almost back.” 

The left side of him stayed tall and strong but no longer had a mane of white hair cascading over his shoulders that tickled the professor’s neck with each staggering step they took. Draco Malfoy was now walking where his father was. They stopped in front of the man’s chamber door and Draco knocked. Riddle shook his head to try and clear it. “Draco, what’s going on? Where’d your father go?” 

“Sorry, professor. Please don’t hate me if you remember any of this, but I owe him one for getting those bullies off my back and I really had no choice,” the boy replied as he smiled back at him in a guilty manner before looking up at the person who opened Riddle’s chamber door. 

“Bring him in. Put him on the bed back there.” The invader followed the two kidnappers into the bedroom, and watched them accidentally drop him on the floor before scooping him back up. “Gently, gods! I sort of need him intact for this, Parkinson.” 

“He’ll live. You want me to tie him up for you too, Potty? It’d be a pleasure, seeing as he gave me a “T” on my last paper.” Pansy asked the third party as the tall looming figure rubbed his hands together to warm them up. “I’d be totally into that…as long as you wipe his memory, that is.” 

“Nah, he looks pretty fucked up. I should be fine.” Tom found himself lying on his back on his bed. He squinted at the person with his back to him giving the two Slytherins a series of high-fives and praises. “You two are bloody amazing. And we’re even now.” 

“Great. And you better wipe his memory of us drugging and kidnapping him or we’ll say we were Weasley-Zabini and Zabini-Weasley.” 

“No worries, I’ll take care of everything.” 

The doors closed and locked. 

Tom tried to sit up but someone climbed on top of him and shoved him back down. 

“Where do you think you’re going, big boy? We’ve got some plans to deal with, you and me.” 

Riddle did his best snarl to look intimidating while he was being easily held down and stripped. “Tell me what you gave me, Mr Potter, and I might not inform the headmaster or alert the Ministry.” 

“Blah, blah, blah. Do shut up, please.” 

Tom focused on the boy straddling his mid-section and found himself looking up into the brightest eyes he had ever peered into. He smiled. “Gods, so pretty…Despite being a complete arse you are so very, very pretty.” 

“I’d never get tired of hearing you say that; not the arse part, the other part...” 

Riddle felt loose, silly, and began giggling when Harry cupped the sides of his face to kiss him. “What are you doing to me, Potter?” 

“I’m seducing you, professor,” Harry whispered against his supple lips. Decades of using beeswax kept them soft and young, and when Harry pressed his mouth against them it made him sigh from the touch. Riddle could hardly fight back or even fully understand what was going on, Harry was sure, but the stubborn bastard was making things really difficult for him and the man did say Harry needed to step up his game if he wanted a chance to bag him. “I’m giving you that nudge, the out you need to make this thing between us finally happen. You won’t have to pretend you don’t want to sleep with me anymore.” 

Harry shoved Riddle’s hands up over his head. “And it’s very important you let me have my way with you right. Now. The poison in your system will kill you soon if you don’t let my hand inside your boxers-so stop fighting it!” 

“Poison?” Whatever he had ingested, the drug dulled the professor’s senses and slowed his reflexes. And he was a very intelligent and cunning man, so maybe, just maybe he allowed himself to be taken advantage of. Harry was on top of him, swishing his tongue along the tops of his teeth while he unzipped the man’s trousers and tore his starched shirt open. Riddle tried to rise up but Harry’s mouth was against his then, and their bodies locked together. 

There’s something about French kissing that feels like nothing else; there’s the warmth of your mouths touching and the pillowy softness of another’s tongue flattened up against yours that causes everything inside you to swell and heat up. It stirs your libido, it is a gateway drug to get you to the next base. Swapping spit with another person, someone you are very attracted to, is greatly addicting. You can taste them, feel their heat, and understand their desire by the way they scrape their tongue up against yours. Harry was very good at kissing, having practised on anything and anyone he could use or talk into to perfect his technique. And he soon realised that Professor Riddle was no slob when it came to twining tongues either. 

“So what did you have them put in the drink?” Riddle asked him after taking a much-needed breath. He had given up trying to stop Harry from slipping his hand into his boxers, he gave in and let it happen. Fighting anything Potter was doing only seemed to strengthen the power of whatever Harry had drugged him with, or so he told himself. And Harry smelled so innocently, like candy-floss, and also wanton like a pro with expensive cologne. He was primped, polished, looking dazzling in one of Riddle’s over-sized shirts with a Slytherin tie slung loosely around his neck. His preppy glasses had slipped down to the tip of his nose as he worked on getting Riddle rock-hard through his fuzzy state of being doped up. 

“It’s a love potion I invented, a deadly one. Either you let me fuck you all night long or you die very painfully over the course of the next twelve hours. Can I have my way with you now, professor?” 

“Gods, Potter, that sounds like I have no choice,” Tom managed to say before the overwhelming urge to swallow Harry’s tongue overtook his worry. But he knew that Harry was lying through his teeth all the same, and letting the poor sod think he had won this battle was not in Riddle’s cards. Although the dexterous hand-movement under the cotton of his boxers felt like he had died and went to heaven, another, less amazing feeling of anger and power overwhelmed it. He had played Potter’s game long enough. It was time that Potter played his game. “I feel…uh, I feel like I might be dying…slipping out of…” And with that Riddle played dead, going limp and unresponsive beneath the boy of his dreams. 

Harry froze. “Professor?” 

He shook Riddle’s chiselled chin back and forth a few times, then patted his cheeks as the man had done to him earlier in the afternoon during class when he had suddenly lost consciousness. Nothing worked, Riddle was gone. “Oh Merlin, no…” Harry began to gasp for breath as he backed off of the teacher. Had Malfoy and Parkinson given him something more than…“I’ll get help! Hang in there, Professor Riddle!” 

But before he could leave the bed something grabbed him. 

“You honestly think I’m an idiot, Potter?” Tom reared up, taking Harry at the waist and flipped him around so that the teacher was now on top of the naughty student. “Always the smart ass, aren’t you?” He popped the joints in his neck before letting his head drop down so he could loom over the prettiest thing he had ever trapped in his clutches before. His long fingers wound around the Slytherin tie. He yanked it upward, forcing Harry to lean up to meet his lips. “You think I’d really drink something put in front of me before I tested it?” 

“Well, uh, to be honest not anymore, professor,” Harry whispered against his lips, hoping Riddle would drop that fact and plunge his tongue into his mouth. “I see now that you’re a lot more clever than I give you credit for.” 

“It wasn’t a potion,” Tom said as he tangled his finger into Harry’s messy mop of hair to hold his head in place. “Or anything poisonous. I’m certain of that.” 

Harry huffed and stiffened up. “Don’t blame me for this. You’re the one who gave me the idea. _You_ accused _me_ of using a potion to seduce you last year.” Harry wrapped his arms around Riddle’s neck, and his legs around his waist, locking his ankles at the small of his lengthy back. It hardly lasted, though; Riddle eagerly pressed Harry into the mattress and began a trail of kisses from his pulsing throat down to the elastic of his Wimbourne Wasps logo-covered briefs. 

The boy’s dainty fingers encircled his wrist. “Try not to tear them, professor, they’re my lucky pair.” 

“Oh, you think you’re getting lucky tonight? This is my room, my career on the line,” Riddle informed him as he promptly ripped open the seam at the boy’s hip. 

“Your career on the line?” Harry shoved back and tried to hold his torn briefs over his groin. “As if you really care about anything. I read your resignation letter, _sir._ ” 

“Shut the hell up about the letter, Potter,” Tom replied. “Now tell me what you really had your friends slip into my drinks. And don’t lie to me this time.” Tom pointed to his own eyes before tearing the intact part of the briefs away from Harry’s other hip bone. “I’ll incinerate these ghastly things if you don’t tell me right now, brat.” 

“Fire whiskey, the good stuff,” Harry confessed. “Nicked it from my dad’s wet bar and smuggled into the school in my trunk. I heard you had a pathetically weak constitution, sir, that you barely ever indulge.” 

“Really? That’s it? Is that what this is…I’m drunk?” Tom sat back on his haunches with a sigh. Again, he let himself take things too far under the guise of tested restraint. He looked down at the balled-up pair of underwear clutched in his hand, noting the ripped seams and stringy mess he had made for the sake of controlling the situation - without actually controlling himself. “Bloody hell…” 

“Gods, here we go again: Professor Riddle loses his sodding nerve. For the billionth time.” Harry growled and snatched them away, disgusted by seeing Riddle’s features contort with guilt, and fresh sweat begin forming on his brow. “Lovely handiwork, you wanker.” He sat up and shoved the teacher back to knock him off-balance and hopped off the bed to gather up his clothing. 

The Head Boy was still wearing the man’s crisp linen shirt that almost swallowed his lithe frame. Tom took one last look at his attractive form before “coming to his senses”. “Look, Potter, I am well aware that you’re upset with me because your childish trickery failed to fully reel me in, again, but this time I will admit I am impressed with your effort.” 

“Shove that effort up your arse,” Harry replied. He grabbed up his cloak and slung it around his shoulders, covering his almost naked-form, sans the shirt, tie and his fluffy Gryffindor socks. And before he disappeared from the professor’s view he added, “And I’m keeping your fucking shirt for ruining my undies. Sleep well, professor.” 

“We are wizards, Potter. You can fix your stupid undies with magic. Then take care to shove them up your own arse, if you’d be so kind.” It wasn’t a matter of Tom not wanting to mess around with the Gryffindor anymore, he was well past feeling guilty or thinking it immoral. No, that was exactly what made it all the more enticing. Harry and he would be engaged in another round of raucous behaviour and soon, but not by Harry’s hand. “Do lock the door when you leave. I don’t want anyone else stumbling inside here to try and take advantage of me.” 

“Take advantage of…Oh, fuck off, prick!” 

“That seems to be a new term of endearment of sorts, coming from you…” 

The chamber door slammed closed. Tom threw a pillow at the open bedroom door and watched it land harmlessly on the floor of his living quarters. He half-wondered whether Potter had actually stomped off and left the room, or if he was still there; hidden, watching him. He glanced over at the Sneakascopes, the Secrecy Sensors, the Foeglass and Probity Probes, knowing at least one of them would have gone off by now if he had consumed anything poisonous earlier in the evening or if Harry was still inside his chambers. He sighed and fell back into his bedding. 

His snake, Nagini, curled up around him to share his warmth. _“~He’ll be the death of you,~”_ she whispered in his ear. 

 _“~I know,~”_ he replied, before kissing the tip of her nose and closing his eyes. Once, a long time ago, Riddle sought eternal life. He had even created a number of Horcruxes to instill this dream. Now, all he thought about doing was destroying them. _“~I’m counting on it.~”_


	3. The Boy Who Scored

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tom has lost all will to live finding he can't escape this nightmare of teaching. The Headmaster realises that the man is coming to the end of his penance and loosens the bond of punishment that holds the Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher so tightly. Now, with a newfound freedom, Snape encourages Tom to become what he was always destined to be: Lord Voldemort. Well, at least in private, and only when he's alone with Harry, that is.

Lily Potter flipped her long auburn hair behind her as she bent over the table to reach for the ball of yarn that had gotten away from her. She blew at the fringe covering her eyes so she could see. She crouched lower and dropped to her knees. Her fingertips grazed along the yarn. Almost back in her clutches, she froze, hearing a sing-songy voice pierce the air, and watched her husband swoop in to retrieve the yarn for her. 

“I’ve got it, darling! Don’t break a fingernail, don’t put your back out.” 

James Potter stood up and loomed over his wife, forcing her to retake and move all the way back in her seat to avoid any sort of physical touching. She and James were having issues, at least they were in her mind. She had grown tired of being pampered and coddled and all of the other useless deeds in between that her husband did for her to keep her happy. She hadn’t gotten her hands dirty in years. “I could have gotten it. I almost had it.” 

Her handsome husband rolled his eyes at her. “Have you forgotten how to levitate things, love? Manual labour is for Squib House Elves.” He tossed the yarn almost playfully at her. Almost. It did hit her in the face, taking some of the playfulness away. 

“Would you like to knit this scarf I’m making for Harry for me, too?” she asked him, only half-joking. 

“Again, that’s why we employ House Elves,” James pshawed, missing the sarcasm. He seemed to miss a lot of things anymore, things that used to be something they both shared. “I pay them fair wages, they need to do something, Lily.” Life as a trophy wife had become dull and boring. James only took Lily out anymore if it was for publicity. He almost preferred the company of his best friend, Sirius Black, or as she liked to call him; the bloke who got so piss-drunk one night he married his cousin. Now, she had to look forward to weekends spent entertaining Bellatrix Lestrange while James and Sirius got to pretend they were still little bullies in school. 

But not this weekend. Tonight, she had different plans. She dropped her needles on the table and tossed the ball of yarn in her basket before standing up. She grinned at the feeling of butterflies dancing in her stomach. She had little love for some of the Dursleys, but her sister and nephew were always in her heart, but they weren’t the ones who made her keep second-guessing what she should wear for dinner. She glanced up at James before needing to get back upstairs and go through her wardrobe again before it got too late. “Well, get your House Elves to make dinner for you tonight, I’m going out.” 

“Again?” James asked, as he looked over his shoulder to the calendar hanging on the wall. There was nothing written on that day’s date. “Didn’t you just go out yesterday? You visit with Minerva and Harry already?” 

“Yes, I did,” Lily stated. “And tonight I’m going to my sister’s and I haven’t a thing to wear. If you’ll excuse me, darling.” She got up on her toes and planted a soft kiss on James’ lips. She patted his cheek, and then dashed up the stairs. 

James shrugged, watching her flee. “I wasn’t invited?” 

Lily paused at the top step for a second. “No.” And then she was gone, leaving her husband stymied as to why she was so excited about going to visit the Dursleys. 

* * *

“ _~My whole life is a joke, a sick fucking joke.~_ ” 

Tom Riddle dipped his quill into the inkpot sitting on his desk. This ritual of trying to resign from the position of teaching Defence Against the Dark Arts had grown stronger throughout the day. After waking up with a splitting headache and remembering bits and pieces of being dragged through the school and nearly molested in his own bed the night before, this long life of servitude seemed more dense and amplified than he could handle. Harry Potter had many allies and goons at his beck and call, rendering Tom defenceless. How could he survive another year of Cloak and Dagger with the rich snot when he had nothing on his side to help him. And try as he might to confess his sins to Snape, or even hint to what had happened to him the evening before, nothing but muttered gobs of stammering exited his mouth. 

His hand shook as he wrote, but he didn’t notice that his penmanship was less than perfect. Nothing seemed to matter anymore. He knew if Dumbledore did not release him from this nightmare soon he would die. He folded up the paper and stuck it inside his pocket before the ink had a chance to dry and left his office. He bumped into several roaming students and teachers clamouring in the halls but said nothing, or even noticed them. His mind was set on delivering his letter to the headmaster before it was too late. Until, that was, he bumped into Draco and Pansy cavorting in the hallway, the sight of them causing fresh tears to burn the reds of his eyes. Both of them paled and looked at the other, knowing insantly that Potter had not wiped his effing memory of the night before. 

“Professor, wait!” Pansy shouted. 

Riddle could hear them chasing him. He began to sprint while he ducked their rapid-firing of memory altering casts, none of which stuck. He scaled the steps to the headmaster’s tower and ran through the Gargoyle Corridor. He blurted the password to the gargoyle to access the stone staircase and stopped dead in front of the headmaster just before he ploughed over him. He held out the letter, not caring that he had just interrupted the man and fellow teacher, Minerva McGonagall, working together in a planning meeting. “Please, Dumbledore, please accept this.” 

“Tom, you know I can't.” Albus’s glinting-blue eyes narrowed in curio at the sight of the man. Riddle, always so strong and cold, was none of these things anymore. Though his head was hung low, he could see tears clinging to the lower lashes of his averted dark eyes. He was quivering, tongue-tied, his hand shaking to keep the letter visible so the headmaster could take it and accept it. Albus gently nudged the letter from the man’s fingers to let it drop to the floor. “Come with me…sit.” He ushered the damaged man over to a chair on the opposite side of his desk. 

“I don’t want to sit - I want to quit, I need you to sack me, Albus,” Tom said, but sat down anyway, fearing his legs might collapse from under him if he didn’t take the seat very soon. He scrubbed his face in hopes of hiding the tears. “Please, Albus, please let me go before it’s too late…It’s already too late...” 

“Oh, my dear boy.” The headmaster felt his heart break in two, knowing he had caused this turmoil and pain but found himself very unable to correct it. It was a sentence that Tom was serving for the murders of many people during his first twenty-eight years of life. He, himself, had not created the sentence, he merely added pretections to Riddle's curse, to prevent the man from doing anything dark within the castle walls. 

Tom flung himself over the desk and grabbed the elderly man’s hand, desperate for his help. “If you can’t accept my resignation you have to kill me.” 

Albus shook his head. “Oh, Tom, that’s absurd.” 

“No, sir, it is not absurd. Do not dismiss this again, I beg you.” The tears began to leak from Tom’s eyes again at the thought of being trapped in this prison, as a nobody, for eternity. “I tried doing it myself, killing myself…I’ve tried to die so many times, but it doesn’t work. No matter what I do, or how hard I try to die something always intervenes, a force beyond my control…not my own, not my subconscious, it’s like that force that won’t let me speak about the things that happen between me and…me and the Potter boy.” 

“I see,” Albus whispered in understanding. Minerva dropped a hand on Dumbledore’s shoulder as her head shook in agreement. The Headmaster clenched his teeth in frustration and patted the cursed man’s hand while he looked up at the Gryffindor Head-of-House with pity welling up in his eyes. Minerva tipped her head sympathetically in return. “I know that little Harry has been a thorn in your side all these years. And, to be honest, up to this point I thought it might be good for you to have this back-and-forth with another person so similar to you. He is so much like you in so many ways, the only wizard or witch I have met to date that reminded me of you at his age; so curious, so intelligent and eager to push the boundaries of the box we all seem to be stuck inside. I have told him to curb his torment, Tom, but I had no idea it was eating you alive.” 

Tom shook his head in disagreement. “It’s not Harry’s fault. If anything, I feel somewhat alive when we’re…wwww...ugh.” He stiffened at the failure to speak about Harry and his troubled relationship. It was an unhealthy thing, but it was also the only thing on Earth that made him feel alive anymore. “Ugh, gods, nothing works, nothing comes out. I’m a failure, I can’t speak right or kill myself, I’m a sodding failure.” 

“It’s all right, Tom, it’s not your fault. I would never have…” He paused for a moment, deep in thought. He continued to pat Tom’s hand while he shushed him in a paternal manner, to keep the man from losing the grasping vestiges of humility. And then it came to him, a way to work around the steel bonds of enslavement he and Tom himself had sentenced him to. “When you say you cannot speak of things, do you mean literally? Like, what won’t this force allow you to speak of?” 

“About the…th-th-th-nnn…about last nnnn,” Tom stammered, before breaking into another bout of self-pitying sobs. “What’s wrong with me?”

* * *

“So when you two left us alone, I gowwwww…err,” Harry burbled, and then found himself to be suddenly confused. He cleared his throat and straightened up in his sitting position to address his friends, Pansy and Draco, along with the rest of the Prefects and the Head Girl, one more time without all the marbles that seemed to be stuck in his mouth. “I mean, once you left I hoppppppttt, uh I gooooooogg…what the hell?!” 

“You okay, Potter?” 

“Yeah, I’m fine- _*gasp*_ Don’t mess my hair up!” he shouted back, smacking Pansy’s hand away from his forehead. He sunk his fingers into the mop of thick black hair he was so proud of and mussed it up more than it already was, just the way his father wore his hair. 

“Ha, he said not to mess his hair up,” Draco said in a fit of giggles, until Hermione batted his face away from the inner circle they were all clamoured around in. “What? His hair’s always messy, is all I’m saying.” 

“We get that,” Hermione told him. Her concern was for Harry. The boy was never one to mince words, or have trouble elaborating anything at all. He was blunt, to the point, a no-shame type of bloke. This newfound fear to speak was not natural. She needed to test this out, narrow down what might have happened in order to tackle it. “Did you and Professor Riddle kiss last night?” she asked him, knowing the last time Harry spoke about kissing Riddle he had no trouble at all saying it out on the open to their small group of close friends. 

“Of couuuuu. Err, I mean yeeeeeee uh weeeuuuhhh…oh for Merlin’s tight arse, this is ridiculous. Why can’t I speak right?” Harry sighed. He let his head drop down between his knees in frustration. “It doesn’t matter what did or did not happen last night anyway. He’s taking me out on a date tonight. This is a sure thing, he and I will surely fffffffffffffffffffucking hell.” Harry ripped a friendship bracelet off and threw it across the room. “Speaking only works when I’m not speaking about him and me doing things!” 

Hermione patted the Head Boy’s shoulder while her eyes roamed around the circle, noting the Prefects’ looks of concern. And then it hit her like a brick to the face. She then gasped, clucked her tongue and shook her head at herself for not thinking of it sooner. “It’s simple.” 

Everyone, including Harry, was now staring at her in curio. 

The Head Girl snorted, completely baffled as to why no one else had picked up on it yet. She turned to her best friend. “Did you ever agree never to speak of anything that happens between you and Professor Riddle? Did he ask you to swear you’d never tell anyone about the two of you?” 

Harry shrugged. “Yeah, so what? What’s that matter?” 

Draco’s, Pansy’s, Ginny’s and Blaise’s expressions all switched from confusion to _“Oh, I get it now”._  

Ron, Luna and Neville still looked perplexed. 

“Hufflepuffs…” Hermione shook off the state of hopelessness she was feeling for the three through a shiver, and ingested Luna’s injection to state the fact that she was actually a Ravenclaw with a mumbled, “on paper, yes, but…”. She leaned in, forcing herself not to tap on their skulls to see if they were hollow and said, “Look here, you lot. Listen closely: Harry’s made a vow of silence with Professor Riddle to never speak of what they do alone together out in the open.” She smiled while she bobbed her head up and down and gesticulated exaggeratedly as the remaining Prefects slowly began to understand. “Yes, that’s right - Harry cannot speak of it due to a vowed contract most-likely being infused with a tongue-tying curse. But that doesn’t mean he cannot tell us about it in other ways.” She pulled out a wad of parchment from under her skirt and held it in front of Harry, grinning evilly. “I’ll bet he can still write about it.” 

“Ooh,” Harry hummed while he politely refused the warm, damp papers. “I’ve got something even better than that to write in. I nicked it from that gorgeous old professor’s chambers some years back.” He grinned and cupped a hand beside his mouth. “It’s a diary of his. Unfortunately, he never wrote anything in it for me to use against him…or anything at all. I’ll start recording our dates in it, though, after tonight’s.”

* * *

The headmaster did not fault Tom for his inability to speak of anything untoward he may or may not have done, nor for the sorrow he was now unable to suppress. In over forty years after sentencing the man to this bound life he had never seen Tom cry, and the man had been through seemingly every awful situation one might imagine and never once lost his will to live - until now. It told him internally that Tom’s sentence was coming to an end, that he needed to loosen the bonds of imprisonment from around the man’s neck before it was too late. 

“Come here, Tom,” he said, urging the man from his seat so he could guide him over to depths of his office. He sent Minerva to get Snape for him while he comforted the distraught teacher, the almost-Dark Lord. 

Mere minutes after the potions professor arrived he had Tom sedated and at ease once again. Dumbledore knew this way always helped alleviate the pressure Riddle went through at the start of every new year inside Hogwarts. Since the first time Riddle and Snape met there was a spark alight between them, a kinship, a camaraderie to staying true to themselves even if they had to pretend to be someone else on the outside. It was one of the reasons the headmaster agreed to bring Snape in as a teacher despite how nasty he was to anyone he did not like. 

Dumbledore took the younger Slytherin alumni aside before he and Minerva left them alone. “Before you got here I gave him some respite.” 

Snape shrugged. “That’s lovely.” 

“On his sentence,” Albus continued. “He’ll be more free to think about and act upon things that had been previously restricted from him. I need you to watch him, report back to me if he starts acting…less teacher-like…not that he could do anything too terrible, but you never know what he might be capable of given this much freedom.” 

“Like, uh, how much less teacher-like?” Severus enquired, worried this new job Albus gave him as a babysitter might hinder the evening’s search to find out what was wrong with Lily Potter. Or maybe it would help… “So, no Unforgivables, no murder, stealing, blah blah blah. What about holding someone somewhere against their will, or starting an illicit affair with one of his students?” He faked a laugh while he shrugged, as he was unable to produce one on his own. “Just kidding.” 

Minerva took Albus by the arm to lead him away, but her concerned visage locked on Snape burned holes through him. The moment they left the office he turned back to Riddle to fully wake him up. 

Tom sat up and rubbed his temples to slow the dull ache that had been plaguing him all day. “So he’s not going to sack me, is he?” 

Snape rested down beside him on the headmaster’s settee. “Well, being a dull, elderly teacher who mostly keeps to himself will hardly get one sacked, sir.” 

“Elderly…” Tom looked down at the mothball-ridden cardigan jumper he was wearing to keep warm. He yanked off his bifocals and shoved them in a pocket. “I am not old, I have been shackled to this life. I have no choice but to act like an old man.” 

“Not anymore,” Snape said matter-of-factly. “One might have been given enough slack on the leash to start something one might have been unable to do up until now. You know, like dive into an affair with a certain student one is attracted to.” 

“Are you talking about me and Potter?” 

The potions teacher flipped the thick curtain of hair out of his eyes, feeling the need to boast to his personal idol a little bit. “Well, professor, not that I’m implying that you have any sort of true sexual attraction to the monster-of-a-child, but I can’t think of a faster way to be removed from a position of authority than indulging in reckless behaviour with one. Wouldn’t you agree?” 

Tom cocked an eyebrow at the younger man. “Are you saying I should go ahead and have an affair with Potter, Half-Blood Prince?”

Snape blinked. “Quaint. Have you been looking into my past, sir?” 

The Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher smirked. “Of course I have. I need to know who and what I am dealing with here before I take your advice on what becomes of me and Potter. What if it turned out you were related to his father, James, all this time and you were trying to set me up…” He stopped himself before he finished, knowing how stupid it sounded to say it out loud. 

But that didn’t stop Snape from pointing it out to him anyway. “Yes, all this time we’ve been secretly related, James Potter and I. We’ve staged countless acts of humiliation, all at my expense may I add, in desperate hopes that someday James would have a son you might have the hots for and would so easily fall into a devious trap we’ve set up for you when I suggest you act on it…” 

Tom’s lip curled up in a sneer. He sighed and looked away. “Oh, shut up.” 

Snape nudged the man with an elbow. He wanted to see the Professor Riddle he came to endear so much in his youth; the man who kept his school-life not only sane but sometimes happy despite how badly the four Gryffindor Marauders tried to make it miserable. Without Riddle, life would have been unbearable, a true nightmare. He owed this man, and he wanted to pay him back. “Come on, sir, can’t you try and be happy just this once? Wouldn’t it be fun to let yourself go, even just a little bit? Wouldn’t it be a real kick-in-the-pants to Gryffindors then and now if you were sacked for banging the soon-to-be-Minister of Magic’s only child, Minerva McGonagall’s protege, Hagrid’s closest friend, Dumbledore’s Golden Boy, not to mention Sirius Black’s Godson? I could keep going if you need more pushing, sir,” Snape confessed. “And you know who hates the Potters…the Malfoys. Two very loyal Slytherins who would bend over backward for you if you asked them to. I have a list of every Slytherin you’ve ever taught who would do anything you asked. Even the current Minister, Mulciber, told me if you need anything - done.” 

“Really?” Tom sat up and looked Severus in the eye. 

“Here.” Snape had been fingering a small vial in his pocket during this little chat. He had hoped that Riddle might be more receptive to the idea of letting go the first time Dumbledore mentioned he would be slowly releasing the Heir of Slytherin from his sentence. It was time to help him let go, to take life by the horns. “Drink this,” he said, handing the bottle over to Riddle. 

“What is it?” Tom uncorked it. It smelled familiar. 

“Girding potion,” Snape said. “With a dash of Felix Felicis to give you that little extra _oomph._ ” He returned the man’s worried expression with an eye-roll. “Oh, for Merlin’s sake just drink it. You know you need it.” 

With a defeated shrug, Riddle agreed. He had nothing to lose. "Fine," he said through a little impish grin. He held the bottle up to his lips. "Here goes nothing."

* * *

**A blank Slate**

Tom felt on top of everything and nearly skipped back to his chambers to get ready for this evening’s outing with Snape and…and someone else whose name he couldn’t quite remember. Whoever he was thinking about gave him thick flapping butterflies wiggling around in his stomach. Tonight would be special, he hadn’t gone to dinner with anyone anywhere in over forty years. 

He bumped into Professor Trelawney in the hallway and grabbed her up before she could scramble away, and danced with her until he reached his chamber door. He waved good-bye to her as she shrieked while clawing at the walls to escape the dungeons. “Have a good weekend, I know I will!” he shouted, unconcerned with the woman’s bizarre behaviour. She had always been somewhat off her rocker. 

Having a shower and a close shave and primping, he looked at himself in his mirror and smiled; he looked like he used to when he worked at Borgin and Burkes to reel in the ladies. Now, despite being a man who had turned seventy at the very end of the year, not only had he aged very well after stopping any and all dark magic usage, but it was also true that the lifespans of wizards and witches greatly surpassed that of Muggles, so they aged much slower than them. Tom could easily pass for someone in his forties or early fifties, not that he cared even a lick, the…the object of his desire thought he was gorgeous and that’s all that mattered to him anymore. He splashed a decent amount of expensive after-shave on his cheeks before blotting his sweat-prone forehead with a dusting of powder and set out to his bedroom to dress. 

“There you are-oh damn, you look good. Smell good, too.” 

Riddle froze. He gripped the towel draped around his hips, feeling someone try to snag it away. “Show yourself!” he cried, while his eyes darted around for his wand. 

“Looking for this?” His wand appeared out of thin air in front of Tom. He snatched it up and backed up into a corner. 

“I said show yourself,” Tom commanded, even if he looked like a blinded, wounded animal caught in a wire trap. It was almost if he had forgotten about Harry and his Cloak of Invisibility. 

Harry threw the cloak off and stepped into Riddle’s personal space. His fingers circled the man’s wrist and wrenched it away from it’s towel-holding work. The towel fell to the floor. Harry kicked it away. “Hey, professor. You ready for our date tonight?” He glanced back behind him at the bed for a second. “Or would you rather skip the pleasantries and get right down to it? I’m totes up for that, too.” 

“Potter…Right, I nearly forgot about you.” 

Harry's lip curled up with annoyance. “I beg your pardon? Forgot about me?” 

Instead of Tom’s normal awkward self, he who typically stammered and backed away as far as he could get during these situations, did none of this. Instead, he cocked his head, smirking as he crossed his arms over his chest and leaned back against the wall without a hint of shame over his nudity. Something clicked. Something inside him had been given some slack, his tight bonds loosened, giving the man a bit of confidence he had lost over the decades. His tongue swished over a canine while his eyes roamed up and down the length of the boy standing in front of him. “We have a date tonight, yeah?” 

“…yeah,” Harry half-whispered, his voice lost in his unconscious questioning. He had never seen Professor Riddle look so upbeat before, especially when he cornered him. He moved in a tick, closing the distance between them to test Riddle’s seemingly unshaken posture, and got swept up into the man’s tight embrace. “Whoa.” 

“Whoa?” Riddle inhaled the scent of bubblegum and fear. He popped the joints in his neck before replacing Potter on the floor. “I’m sorry, I thought we had a…never mind.” He turned and opened his wardrobe. He flicked through several identical linen shirts, various Slytherin school robes and a few other boring things that could never enhance his sleek statuesque frame. He sighed, but Harry nudged him aside to choose something for him. 

“These.” The boy pulled out some little briefs, a pair of trousers and a dark cotton roll-neck. He also tossed out a pair of loafers, throwing them on the bed while Riddle dressed. “Don’t wear socks with those. Socks are for numpties.” 

Riddle glanced down at Potter’s fuzzy ankles poking out from under his jeans, noting he was still and was always wearing Gryffindor socks. 

Potter shrugged. “Stop looking at me like that.” 

The cute little smirk always plastered on Harry’s face widened. His cheeks and the tip of his upturned nose were pink from too much sunlight the afternoon before. There was a smattering of freckles brushed across each of them and the bridge of his nose, as well. He was so young, so wet and so ready to be an adult that Tom wanted to take him by the arms and shake some sense into him. A person only gets one chance at being young, and it’s all down hill after that. 

And then it occurred to Tom that he had never allowed himself to mature naturally, either, or be a young person as a young person should. Something inside him had recently been lightened or enlightened, giving him the sense that being rotten, evil, demanding power or eternal life was not living at all; that those things had consumed his being, and had sentenced him to this life of public service until his death. Or had it? 

He grabbed Harry around the middle and pulled him onto his lap in a straddle. He inhaled his sweet fragrance of youth that wafted under his nostrils and made his mouth water. A wicked snarl curled his top lip as a thought, a deviant thought, crossed his mind. He had not had a deviant thought for as long as he could remember. But that didn’t matter then because he had one now, and it was a particularly nasty one. He felt Harry tense up on top of him, with a mixture of uncertainty and fear shadowing his features. It merely intensified the nasty thought swarming around inside Riddle’s mind, and he tightened his grip on the boy before he could recover or remove himself. “Where do you think you’re going? We have a date to get to.” 

Harry felt himself tongue-tied once more, but this time over a swell of raw emotion clouding his head instead of some type of vow he may or may not have made. It was thrilling, at last being noticed by the object of his desire, a man Harry never thought could or would notice him, want him, take hold of him and make him do whatever he wanted to him. He did not want to ruin this moment. He let Riddle bend his arms behind his back and draw him closer into his embrace so he could sip on his throat. “Oh, Merlin…” the boy whispered to himself, feeling Riddle plant his full lips to his pulse-point and suck. His dizzied head lolled back, his muscles went limp. He began breathing silently through his mouth with uneven panting. 

Tom felt like a vampire sizing up his prey. He bared his teeth as he watched the artery on Harry’s slender neck throb fast and hard just for him. If he had fangs he would have sank them into it. “Gods, you smell so fucking good. Good enough to eat.” He felt Harry press harder against him and drop his head onto the teacher’s strong shoulder while the man’s tongue traced the thick vein up along the length of his throat. 

“Then eat me,” Harry teased through a giggle. An added, “I dare you,” just to try and seal the deal. He locked his knees at the man’s sides and grasped the hands holding his behind his back, refusing to let go. His lips were on the man’s ear, breathing hard against the shell. “Do something to me. I wanna feel…something, anything, professor.” 

“Me too,” Tom murmured back, with his face buried in Harry’s thick wild hair. Both had tensed up to the point of breaking, both so desperate to live. The clock on the wall decided against their liaison, though, and chimed at them in an angry tone, letting them know they would be late for their dinner date soon if they did not get a move on. Tom slipped on the loafers sans the socks and threw on a tie, tying it as he eyed Harry’s growing agitation. “I am not pussying out, as you so like to say,” the man said to the boy. He stood up, towering over Harry, refusing to let him retort. He closed the boy’s mouth for him with a clip of his fingers. “Zip it. We will finish this later tonight.” It was not a question. It was not a request. Tom straightened out Harry’s crumpled shirt and tie, and smoothed the boy’s wild hair back with a bit of magical hair balm that had never let him down before. To finish, he adjusted the spectacles on the boy’s nose and pinched his cheeks pink as he had seen his mother do to him, and then stepped back to take in the boy’s appearance as a whole. “Very good.” 

“Very good? That’s it?” Harry snarled. “Are you flaking on me again?” 

Riddle traced out the four corners of an imaginary box in the air before flicking through it with annoyance. “I have a very small window of time to get you to the dinner, examine your mother to find out if your father has been poisoning her with some sort of love potion, and trap her inside of her sister’s Muggle house so she cannot escape before I’m called back, Potter, so move your arse!” He gripped the boy by the upper arm and pulled him out of the chamber so they could leave the grounds of Hogwarts and apparate to Little Whinging, ignoring his exasperated questioning about what the man had just stated. 

* * *

 

“…tall.” 

Riddle looked down at the large, purple-faced woman who had answered the door. Her grey eyes scanned over the man briefly before landing on and narrowing at Harry. “And you…No one said you were coming.” Before either wizard could enter the woman threw a hand out to stop Riddle, thrusting it into his gut. “You another one of them teachers from St Brutus’s escorting this ruffian?” She hitched a thumb at Harry. “Why isn’t he wearing shackles?” 

Harry nudged the shocked silence from his teacher with a well-placed elbow. Riddle blinked and then tipped his head while he threw up his trademark charming smile. He tightened his grip around the boy’s upper arm. “Yes, St Brutus’s, right. Err, I removed Harry’s restraints before I knocked, it being the proper thing to do.” 

Harry growled audibly at the rotund woman as he and Riddle pushed past to get inside. “Aunt Marge, however did you make it here? Certainly not on your own. Did Uncle Vernon splurge for a crane, or did my mum inflate you big fat ars-” Riddle clamped a hand over his mouth to shut him up, all the while still smiling at the woman as she escorted them to the sitting area to meet everyone else. 

“I do hope St Brutus’s still uses corporal punishment on the nasty ones. Do you get to beat this one often?” 

“All the time, ma'am,” Riddle replied. “Whenever possible.” 

“Excellent! Perhaps some day he’ll grow up enough to act like his cousin…but I doubt it.” And as she said it, Riddle’s eyes landed on a beast of a boy, who rushed up and snatched Harry from him like a thief. He then let Snape guide him to a rocking chair resting beside a large fireplace so that he and Harry’s mum could introduce him to the Dursleys. He could already feel the tug to leave, a beckoning siren-like voice calling him to return to Hogwarts where it was safe and free from socialising, and Muggles. He mopped at the sweat purling on his forehead as he sleep-walked through his ‘hellos’. 

Severus looked different. Riddle noted the Muggle-like clothing he was adorning, and he looked and smelled great, and there were no grease spots on his shirt at all. His long curtain of black hair was pulled back and tied off, his face was freshly shaved, and he was…smiling, smiling with teeth. He seemed comfortable with the Muggles and Lily and even Harry was engaging with him as if he could almost stand him. This was so very different than the Snape he knew from Hogwarts, so very, very different. He felt the air grow thick and hot around him, suffocating him. Vernon bustled by him and opened the fireplace flue. 

“Sorry about that, Riddle,” he said, patting the man’s knee as he passed again to take his seat once more beside his wife. "It gets so hot inside here so quickly." The Dursleys were blond and nervous folk, who often eyed their nephew/cousin, Harry, with an amount of fear. Lily and Severus seemed immune to their hatred but Riddle picked up on it immediately. They all loathed the boy.

“Severus,” Riddle spoke up, addressing his comrade, “has the uh…MoM been alerted to tonight’s gathering…or is uh, err…you know, can we use…the M-word, how is that going to work in this setting?” 

“All taken care of,” Snape replied. “Lily here has always been able to…” He glanced over at Aunt Marge for a brief moment before carefully choosing his words, “ _indulge_ in the M-word when certain people are not visiting.” He patted Lily’s knee before giving it a squeeze and flashing a big grin at the other teacher. 

“If you’re talking about magic,” Harry butted in without a hint of couth, “I can use it whenever I want to, wherever I want to. I don’t give a toss about Large Marge and her stupidity over my mum and my-” 

“Harry!” Lily shouted. “Shut your mouth.” 

“Ooh, I think dinner is ready,” Petunia injected, and stood up from the sofa. She pointed to a doorway adjoining the living area. “Everyone to the dining room.” 

* * *

The urge to flip the table and run screaming from the house was compelling. Tom dabbed his face with a napkin to hide his forever sweaty brow. The Dursleys males were piggish eaters, and the Dursley females were gossips who not only did not like Harry, but did not like Snape or even Lily all that much either. They spoke of them as if they weren't sitting there with them, and Riddle was thoroughly aghast. He waited patiently for something to happen, as he was assured this thing would happen early into the evening so he could do what he needed to do and leave without having spent much time inside that bloody house. And as Harry kicked off a shoe to run his toes up the leg of Riddle’s trousers, and Dudley made a fart joke that no one laughed at - that thing finally happened: Lily slumped dead-asleep into her bowl of soup. 

Riddle’s eyes widened.

Snape covered his feigned surprise with the tips of his fingers. 

Harry freaked the fuck out. “Mum…? _MUM?!_ ” 

Instead of reacting along with them, all of the Dursleys promptly dropped over the table after that, causing the boy to slowly look up in fear at the only two wizards left awake. “What the hell did you two do to my family?” 

Riddle smirked wickedly at Snape while he pointed to Harry. His nose crinkled in a mixture of excitement and intrigue about this situation. He had not done anything of this calibre of nastiness in over four decades. Even if the outcome would merely be diagnosing some poor sap of a woman with being forced to stay in a marriage she may or may not have been duped into joining, and possibly doing illicit things with her outwardly-perfect son after the job was finished, it was delicious. "And him?"

“Young wizards and witches sometimes take a little longer to succumb,” Snape answered, giving him a little smile. "Give it a moment."

Harry gasped. “What the hell did you do?!” he cried as he shoved back from the table to escape. 

Tom tapped the corners of his mouth with his napkin, set it on the table, stood up and apparated to the front door the instant Harry threw it open. Harry and Riddle locked eyes, and for the first time he had ever observed the brave Gryffindor Head Boy, he saw true fear in those bottle-green aborations. He smirked and slammed the door closed on Harry and cornered him in the space between it and another door leading to a cupboard under the stairs. “And where do you think you’re going, _big boy_ ,” he asked the startled teen as he placed his hands on the sides of him to keep him from dashing off. 

“Professor…” Having never once in his life found himself in a situation where either his mother, father or some authority figure did not have complete control of the surroundings, Harry found himself in one where it did not look good about coming away from this unscathed. His head was swimming in a muck of pea soup and his limbs refused to do what his mind was screaming at them to do. He shrunk into himself for some sense of safety, fearing being crushed under the thumb of these two wizards he had thought, up to this point, were perfectly harmless. 

Riddle, although oddly alluring in an eccentrically mysterious way, had never appeared to be a threat in Harry’s mind, that was until his mother and Muggle family were taken out by him in one sitting without showing a clue as to what he had done to them. Now, the statuesque villain holding him up against the wall was leering down at him as if he were about to devour him. Harry finally realised that he had been _fucking with the bull_ for years without any serious threat of getting the horns - but now those metaphorical horns had been sharpened to razor points and pressed to his throat. And at that very moment Harry knew if he did not take this wicked bull by said horns he would lose - and he did not like to lose. He had not been messing with this bull all those long years for nothing, after all. 

“Is she dead?” he asked the man, in a voice that more than surprised the professor, having assumed the boy was all show and no substance. “Because if she is I’m going to kill you.” 

“No, of course she’s not dead,” Riddle replied. Without a hitch, he swept Harry up off his feet, seeing the boy’s eyes begin to cross and legs sway to hold his weight up from the elixir soaring through his bloodstream. Harry fought hard to stay conscious through the sleep draught, as hard as any powerful wizard or witch could. This again surprised Riddle. 

“I will fight you to my last breath,” was Harry’s last words, nearly inaudible but very clear. 

“I’ll bet you would,” Riddle replied, awestruck. This boy was not merely lucky, he was not some spoilt creature with a future filled with date-rapes and cow-tipping as an occupation, as he had always assumed; this boy was the real deal - an equal…his equal - the Chosen One. “So it’s true,” he whispered as he lifted the now unconscious boy up into his arms so that he could carry him to the living area and examine his mother before the dreaded Call-of-Hogwarts consumed him and forced him to return home. 

* * *

“There is something…” 

“Is it Amortentia?” 

“No.” Riddle looked over his bifocals as he addressed Snape. The poor sod had been cuddling Mrs Potter in his arms like a worried old granny since the start of the examination. He had never seen this side of Severus before; he could hardly believe the man had any sort of conscience up to that point judging by the way he treated his pupils, but it was clear that he had something for Lily. “It’s not a love potion, or anything detectable that is near as strong as Amortentia, at least. But there’s definitely some type of magick being used here, something is not right. It’s cloudy, muddled; neither good nor bad. And there’s er…what is this? Do they own pets?” Riddle picked a few hairs off of Lily’s jumper. He held them up to the lamp-light on the table beside them. The hairs were a coarse grey and short, a pelted-like fur. “Perhaps a non-domesticated animal?” 

Snape looked clueless for a moment. “I do not believe they have any pets other than a cat.” 

The attentive professor leaned back toward the overstuffed chair he had placed Harry on and tapped his face a few times before easing the knotted cloth he had gagged him with out of his mouth. “Eh, wake up, Potter. Wake up now.” 

Stirring back into the living, Harry did not look one bit like a happy camper. He squinted to look upon his mother lying on the sofa propped up in Snape’s lap, still fast asleep. At least she appeared unharmed, intact. “What, pig?” 

Riddle took a bite out of an apple he nicked off the Dursley’s kitchen counter before speaking, having skipped dinner. He chewed it slowly, letting the boy stir a bit for his own amusement. “You own pets other than a cat?” 

“Just my owl,” Harry replied. He was working at the rope binding his hands behind his back as casually as possible while he spread his glare equally to both teachers. 

“Your mum has some fur on her shirt here.” He held it up for Harry to look at. 

“Get bent, both of you. When my father hears about this he’ll have you both swinging from nooses!” 

“Your idiot father is not going to hear about this, brat,” Snape informed him. “And we both know I should have been your father, boy.” 

“You wish,” Harry spat back. “One has to bear a set of testicles in order to impregnate a woman,” he informed Riddle at Snape’s expense. “Something he is clearly lacking!” 

“You little monster!” Snake hissed. 

“You’re so dead, Snape, you creepy motherfu-” 

Riddle jammed the gag back in the boy's mouth to shut him up. “Enough jabber. Look,” he said pointedly, turning to Snape’s direction. He spun an index finger in the air and clenched his teeth, fearing he was about to lose any vestiges of control he had left in order to stay at the Dursleys. The pull to return home tore and clawed at his psyche, compelling him to disapparate away. “Gotta be honest here. This was really fun and all that good stuff but I need to get those wards up and leave before I lose it and just slaughter the lot of you without any sort of mercy. So, if we could wrap this up, I’ll get the wards on the house going and return Potter to Hogwarts. Yeah?” His head bobbed up and down as he stared at Snape like he’d very recently lost his mind. 

Snape and Harry exchanged a look of worry before the young teacher held up a defencive hand to Riddle so he could get on his way. “Of course, Professor Riddle. I-” 

“Excellent, gotta go!” Riddle cut him off as he stood up, got Harry into a headlock and dragged him over to the front door. He drew his wand after opening it, pulling Harry out with him onto the stoop so he could magically brick the place up in order to prevent anyone outside getting in or inside getting out. “If you need anything, use that marker I left on the counter. Just rub it and I’ll drop by. I’ll let Professor Dumbledore know that you got delayed, and I’ll ask Professor Quirrell to take over your afternoon classes while I’ll handle your mornings. Good day, Severus.” 

Snape rushed over to the door. “Do not let Potter communicate with his father - or anyone else, at least about tonight!” 

Tom managed to find a grin through the pain from denying the call for far too long. “No worries, he won’t be able to tell anyone about this. Not ever.” He slammed the door on Snape and cast several wordless spells, creating a web of plasma to encase the house, starting from the ground, that reached up to the ends of the atmosphere. 

Harry screamed as best as he could at a jogger as they passed by, but Riddle whipped his wand about and erased it from their memory before it even registered that they were witnessing a tall older man clutching onto a younger man, who just so happened to be tied up and gagged and screaming for help. 

The call to return to Hogwarts was no longer ignorable. “It can’t wait any longer or I’ll die,” Riddle mumbled as he pulled Harry closer and held up his wand to disapparate them both. “And if I die surely you’ll die.” 

He had Harry plastered up against him as they popped into the area directly outside of the large iron ates that led to the castle. The call was now possessing him. He no longer moved on his own. As if Harry was now a part of him, Riddle dragged him along with him past the gates, making it inside the school. 

Then, and only then, was Riddle allowed to breathe a huge sigh of relief. “I can’t take you to my chambers, not tonight.” He shielded Harry behind him despite being alone in the Entrance Hall. He summoned Harry’s cloak and draped it over their bodies. “But I can’t let you go. They’ll be looking for you. I can’t have that…not yet. Not tonight,” he said, pulling Harry up against him, removing his glasses. His tongue snaked out on its own, tasting the saliva pooling under his bottom lip. And it tasted exactly like he thought it would; heaven. The arm holding Harry tightened, forcing the boy up to his toes. Riddle’s eyes were wild, frenzied. He snarled as he inhaled the scent of a captured Gryffindor, dying to take a bite out of him. “No more mucking about, come with me. Tonight you’re mine.” 

* * *

“I come down here sometimes to get away from it all; the calling, the students, Dumbledore…” Tom had been mumbling about the chamber since their arrival. He pulled back the hair splayed over Harry’s throat and tucked it behind his ear so he could suck on the lobe without interference. He paused for a moment, looking deeply into Harry’s eyes. “Do you like it down here?” 

Unable to reply, Harry dropped his head on the man’s shoulder. Still all tied up and gagged, he had no choice but to let Riddle do whatever the hell he wanted, praying that he finally would. 

Their surroundings were disgusting, mouldy and stagnant. The floors were littered with bones, but neither of them seemed to care. Tom had made a clean spot and covered the floor with a duvet and sat down to explore the mystery he had kidnapped. Harry was in Riddle’s lap facing him, rocking against him for friction while the man pushed his t-shirt over his head. The older professor held the boy by the chin while he took a breather, and snickered. “I kind of like you like this. You’re completely at my mercy, and you’re so bloody quiet, and yet,” he said as his fingers snagged the gag and eased it out of his mouth, “I’d miss this.” His fingers tangled deep into Harry’s hair the moment their mouths met. They kissed, running their tongues together to scrape and twine. 

Knowing his mother was alive and well made this so easy. “Gods, you’re so hot, professor,” Harry whispered. “This is so fucking hot.” For so long, he had been dying to jump the man’s bones, tear his clothing off and lick every inch of his body - but this was better, much better. Riddle was doing to him what he had been trying to do all those long years, and those large hands that were running up and down his body while shifting his clothing away were nothing short of amazing. But still- “I want more,” he whispered impatiently. He nipped at Riddle’s lip, drawing blood. “I need to feel more, professor.” 

Tom looked down at the blood on the tips of his fingers he had swiped off his chin. He could not remember the last time someone other than his own clumsy self had drawn his blood. “You bit me.” 

“That’s the least of your worries,” Harry hissed. There was a fire in Harry’s narrowed eyes, burning to lose the life of being a mere effigy, to do something other than be the son of James Potter. The boy had dreamed of this moment, hoped beyond hope it would be everything he wanted it to be; be it scary, hopeless, out of his control, or completely in his control. He pushed this man as far as he bloody could and just bit a hole through his bottom lip to shock the life back into him, too, a life that had been so carefully common for far too long. “I know you want this as badly as I do, you sodding cunt. What are you waiting for, professor?! Make me feel something!” 

And then the room they were in, the dark chamber with its endlessly high ceilings and great carvings of snakes, came to life. Fire shot out of every torch nailed to the wall and filled the area with scalding heat. Something snapped inside Tom Marvolo Riddle; the bound Dark Lord-in-waiting broke free. 

He took the boy by the collar and yanked him up close to his face. “You really want this?” 

“I do!” Harry began to shiver with excitement, seeing the demon inside the man break loose.

“And if we do this, we go all the way. Do you hear me? We go all the way.” 

The boy agreed. “All the way, sir.” 

“This is only for us. This is ours.” 

“Yes, ours.” 

“Well then.” Tom kept the boy close so that he could clearly see how serious this matter was. “There are rules, Potter. First and foremost you will not call me ‘professor’ when we’re alone together anymore, it is no longer your right,” he informed the boy. Riddle’s bloodshot eyes lit up, illuminated by the flames licking the walls around them. 

Harry saw that the teacher's pupils within the dark irises had turned to slits, sending chills through his frame. 

The hand twined in the boy’s hair tightened, and Riddle forced his pretty head to rest on his own shoulder. He ignored the pained look, choosing to snap his fingers in his face to that he could see those big green eyes once more. “Look at me, sweet thing, pay close attention to what I’m about to say.” Tom became a man possessed. His mind shifted from his outward being, slipping toward the thing that had been walled up for decades. “From this moment on, when we are together anywhere except class, you will address me only as Lord Voldemort, because that is my true name, that is who I really am.” 

“Lord Voldemort,” Harry whispered. He gave the man a curt nod despite his head being cocked at an awkward angle. “Yes, sir.” 

Tom continued. “I am your master, Harry, your saviour, the thing you fear and worship most, and you will do whatever I say exactly when I say it or you will pay dearly for your insolence. Do I make myself clear?” 

Harry’s heart skipped a beat. A chill of raw fear and excitement surged through his veins. This was what the boy hoped for, prayed for, his dream of when Riddle would finally awaken for him and take his rightful throne. The man was anew, on fire, a true monster that had been hidden behind over-sized school robes and too much hair grease. Riddle was no longer bookish or quiet, or even waxy-looking in this light; he emitted a power here, like that thing that had appeared to Harry through the boggart not too long ago, even if he still looked like Tom Riddle. He truly was Lord Voldemort down here, the man of his dreams…and sometimes his nightmares. “Yes, sir, whatever you say.” 

Riddle stood up, letting Harry slide off of his lap to land on his knees in front of him. 

“I like you like this.” Tom smirked. “You look good down there.” 

“Just choke me out with it already, I’m dying here,” Harry pleaded. He flicked his tongue at the man’s crotch, desperate to get his mouth on that massive bulge sticking in his face. He panted like a dog in wait while he watched Riddle calmly free himself and stroke it like a loving pet. It was beautiful. Harry clasped his bound hands together behind his back to keep himself balanced, and leaned in with his tongue proffered as his own personal Dark Lord prepared to shove his cock in his mouth. “Come on, Lord Voldemort, make me beg for it.” 

“Patience, Potter. All in good time.” Tom was sneering down at the boy in a smug manner. He grabbed Harry by the nape of his neck and eased his prick down his throat. His fingers were wound up in the boy’s hair, guiding the lad slowly, just the way he wanted him. His head lolled back, he exhaled loudly. At last...

The soft warmth of Harry’s mouth had encased him. The boy was no amateur. Harry was a bloody cherry-top with a skill for making one’s blood soar his priority. Nothing had ever felt this good before, not even committing murder or casting Unforgivable spells on people who really deserved it. “Merlin, you’re amazing,” Riddle mumbled, hardly in control of his emotions. It was so fitting down there being fellated by the prettiest boy in the school in the nastiest place he could think of. Such a contrast to correcting rich entitled snots’ essay papers in the middle of the night because you can’t sleep. "Such a good lad, keep sucking."

Harry's eyes were on him, watching the pleasure he was causing and loving every minute of it. He sucked and slurped Tom's massive cock. He choked on it, coughing and gagging through each thrust, giving the man the sights and sounds that made this devious act all that much more enthralling.

And all too quickly Tom began tonguing at the slashed wound on his lip while he held Harry in place so he could come as hard as he could down his abused throat. He clenched his teeth, hissing like a snake and mumbling incoherently in Parseltongue. And even then, being rough and thoughtless with Harry, the boy never wavered in his position. He swallowed him whole, spilling nothing, letting Tom dictate when he was finished only because he’d had enough. 

And the moment Riddle emerged back into consciousness from the pleasure he dropped to his knees in front of Harry and pulled him into his strong embrace. He held him against him in his recovery, relishing in the warmth of the boy’s hot little body and his goosed flesh plastered up against his bare chest. Close human contact was something Tom had never craved before, at least he did not think he ever craved it until that very moment. He never wanted to let Harry go again, and he never would. 

Potter squeezed the tears welling up in his eyes. He was overwhelmed with emotion, too, having never felt as close to another living soul on Earth before. This was what the boy wanted, begged Tom for all those long years of developing puberty, this was how he liked it; he wanted to let go of some control and let a beast, this beast, take hold of him. Harry tipped back, letting Tom kiss him, aching for desperate need in his arms. They kissed forever, so Harry fought to breathe, to tell his professor that he was more than willing to swallow his cock for him again at that very moment, or whenever he wanted it. 

“My turn.” Tom crammed the gag back into Harry’s mouth before he could speak, snickering evilly. He watched Harry adjust to his bondage with amusement. He took his sweet old time, waiting for the right moment to strike. “Now, to do to you whatever I please, boy.” His hand slipped down the length of the boy’s beautiful body, and under the waistband of his little briefs while he sipped at his neck. “I’m gonna make you come so fucking hard you won’t even be able to crawl back up to the tower,” he whispered against the shell of his ear, causing Harry to swoon. 

Harry curled up into him. His head fell on Tom’s shoulder. He tucked his face in the crook of his neck, and let the pleasure swell and grow strong. Tom was so alive. Harry was so alive, too, at long last. He arched up, high on his knees, feeling Tom curl around him, too, while he jerked him off with a spit-covered fist. The gag was yanked out of his mouth and replaced with needing tongue. Both of them were again panting, sweaty, burning with a fire growing white-hot inside of them. “Oh gods,” Harry breathed against Tom’s lips. “I’m really close, proffesss—Lord Voldemort.” 

Tom smirked wickedly. He kept Harry’s lips close to his, needing to feel them quiver, to beg, to plead with him to let him come. “Do you think I should allow that, Harry?” 

“Yes, my Lord, please,” Harry whispered, before burying his face back into Tom’s neck once the man acknowledged that he would allow the boy to climax for him. And so Harry let go of the stress, the agony and loneliness he felt for so long, and this was everything, this was exactly what he needed after living such a trivial life as a wealthy child with two very boring parents, with no sort of adventure to be had. He gasped at the sheer pleasure, with his lips grazing with Tom’s, both breathing fast and hard while he came all over the man's hand. 

How desperate he had been to seek out an anathema, to create a villain out of innocent teacher Tom Marvolo Riddle, in his vivid imagination. But no more day dreams about this: now he had it; an adversary in Lord Voldemort, and he a massive thorn in the man’s side, with a constant struggle between them to keep this voracious act under wraps and be as filthy together as they pleased for as long as they could keep this taboo affair going. 

“I see you repaired your lucky undies,” Tom quipped, while he snuggled into the boy as he recovered in his embrace. He brought his sodden fingers up to his lips to taste Harry’s virile seed. The effect of it was like nothing other, it screamed ‘victory’. He could not remember anything of this magnitude satisfying his insatiable need before. Nothing. He choked out a laugh as he marvelled at what the two of them had just done. There was no guilt, no shame. “Merlin, this was so perfect.” 

“Yes, it was,” Harry replied, grinning. “Now don’t say anything else, you’re just going to say something stupid or awkward and ruin it.” 

Tom closed his mouth and mimicked zipping and locking it up with an imaginary key, which he threw over his shoulder. 

Harry wrapped his arms around Tom’s neck the moment the professor untied him, and they both collapsed on the duvet-covered floor inside the Chamber of Secrets, and fell fast asleep. Both of them had never felt as close to a virtual stranger as either of them had that night, and this was only the beginning.


	4. Foxy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tom finds competition of sorts with the current Dark Lord, a man who is trying to claim that the prophesies are about Potter and he, rather than Riddle. Unable to trust a Ravenclaw as far as he can throw one, he asks his dear friend, Nagini, to keep an eye on his protegy when he isn't around. Harry, on the other hand, becomes more and more of a pleasant surprise to the DADA professor, his skills in doing what is asked surpassing anything he throws at him...or takes from him, especially his virginity.  
> *An A grade stands for Acceptable.

“ _MURDER!”_  

Tom Riddle looked up from the Daily Prophet to eye fellow professor Sybill Trelawney as she shrieked through the man’s office door. He set his quill down in its inkwell, crossed his hands on his desk, and kissed the over-sized snake that had coiled up around his neck and shoulders for his protection before trying to understand why the teacher had screamed at him. “I beg your pardon?” 

“Attempted, that is! There’s been an attempted murder!” she repeated, before moving on to the next office so that she could dramatically scream it again. 

“What? Attempted murder…where? Who? When? Why?” Tom flicked a finger at the door, wandlessly shutting it after getting no answers. “ _~Bloody nutters, that woman.~”_  

 _“~For real,~”_ Nagini replied. 

Within a few minutes the door flew back open and another slightly less insane voice filled the air. “Have you heard?” 

Taking a calming breath before looking up, Tom replaced his quill in the inkpot and crossed his hands on his desk to look up at fellow professor Quirines Quirrell. “About an attempted murder?” The man was, along with professors Trelawney and Filius Flitwick, a former Ravenclaw, with Flitwick being their current Head of House. And Tom Riddle did not particularly care for Ravenclaws, past or current. He had even murdered one once. “Why yes, your little girlfriend just swept by and whooped it at me.” 

“Oh, Tom, you big tease.” Quirrell blushed and looked away for a moment. “She’s not my girlfriend.” 

“My apologies,” Tom replied, hiding the second-handed embarrassing cringe on the outside that he was experiencing for the man on the inside. He gave him a bit of his attention, curious as to what was being spread around the castle. “So, who was nearly murdered?” 

“Not just nearly, Riddle,” the Muggle Studies teacher pointed out as he took a bold step inside the office. “Nearly murdered - by snakebite, inside the Ministry itself!” 

“Snakebite? Inside the Ministry? Did a snake get loose…how do they know it’s attempted murder if it was a snakebite?” Tom reached up and stroked Nagini’s head unconsciously as to comfort her, although she had no idea what was being said. 

“It was an ashwinder, not just any mere snake. It came out of nowhere and set fire to the Time Room and attacked an…” Quirrell tipped his head at Riddle’s snake. “An Unspeakable. Unspeakable Rookwood said that the snake was very intelligent, in a trance or something. He thought perhaps it was following orders, sort of like your pet there does with you.” 

“Nagini is not my pet, Quirines,” Riddle informed him. “I know…err, I knew Rookwood, sometime back. We were colleagues a long time ago.” Noting the man’s interest set on his unique talent for speaking to the slithering beasts, realisation began to set in. Tom sneered. “You aren’t suggesting that a Parselmouth directed the snake to kill him, are you?” 

“Oh no, Prprprprofessor Riddle, I would never suggest anything like that,” Quirrell stammered, as he did at times of great stress. And Professor Riddle almost always induced great stress when they were in the presence of one another. “Especially with you being the only Papapaparselmouth alive, as far as anyone knows. I was only papapassing on the information. Good day, Riddle!” He closed the office door, leaving Riddle perplexed. 

The Dark Arts master glanced to his side to address his closest friend, who just so happened to also be a snake. “ _~Ignore him. He can’t help but be strange; he’s a Ravenclaw.~ ”_  

Nagini agreed. _“~Yes, he’s an odd sort you best stay away from.~_ ” 

 _“~Speaking of wretched Ravenclaws,~”_ Tom quipped, as he unfolded the Daily Prophet again to read the headlines. _“~Gilderoy Lockhart is back, trying to get more famous, I see. He’s quoted as saying he now believes the prophesies spewed out by his former house-mate, Sybill Trelawney, are about him and Harry Potter. He’s offering the boy a place in his ranks. Hm.~”_ He folded the paper up, dropped it in the trash bin and flicked a finger at it, setting it on fire. 

Nagini shifted off of Tom’s shoulders, coiling around the chair so she could watch it burn. _“~There’s no need to worry, Tom. I doubt the boy will take him up on his offer.~”_  

 _“~I know he won’t, that’s not what worries me.~”_ Having always assumed that the meaning of the prophesies were a direct link between he and Potter, it had been spurring him to find a way to end his own life. He had to die in order for him to be free of this awful curse, and for both of them to live. But if Lockhart thought the words were about Potter and he…the meanings for both of them would ring vastly different with said current Dark Lord. A cold chill resonated through his body. He pulled his cardigan closed as he rose up from his seat, and placed a kiss on Nagini’s nose. “ ~ _Try and keep an eye on Harry when I’m not around, will you? I’ve got a bad feeling…can’t put my finger on it, but it’s not good.~”_  

 _“~Right-O, Tom. I won’t let you down,~_ _”_ she replied, as she watched him leave. “ _~I’ve got a bad feeling, too - about both of you.~_ ”

* * *

“Oi, Snivellus, we know you’re in there!” 

“Come out - come out, you ugly bastard!” 

“We’re gonna getcha! You can’t hide from us forever!” 

“If you think you can keep my wife— _MY WIFE_ -away from me you are so sadly mistaken, Snivellus! Just like your life: a sad mistake!” 

Lily peered out the second floor bedroom window to watch her husband and his three best friends egg the wards encasing the Dursley home. Petunia curled up on Dudley’s second bedroom bed next to her and handed her a mug of cocoa. “Man, they just don’t give up, do they?” 

“Not yet,” Lily commented after a tiny sip of liquid gold. She relished in the warmth of the cocoa coating her insides, a stark transition to the chill the four Marauders were causing the occupants. She had tried to explain to him many times by holding up written signs to him at the window that they were all dangerously contagious with a case of Dragon Pox; the very serious illness that took both of James’ parents' lives some time back, but he wouldn’t listen. “Don’t worry, Professor Riddle will be returning soon to check on our progress. Severus said he and Harry were cleared of the illness early on.” She patted her sister’s hand. “And we will be, too. We’re fine. Don’t you worry.” 

“That’s not what I’m worried about,” Petunia replied. She craned her unnaturally long neck out toward the window to watch her brother-in-law and his thugs trashing the front of her home. “Not that I like your friend, Snape, Lily,” she said candidly, patting her sister’s hand. “But why would your husband and his friends be taunting him so? I think they’re on to something. The man is not right in the head. And he is still clearly taken with you.” 

Lily shook her head. “Oh, heavens no, Severus is only a friend,” she assured her only sibling. “He has been and always will be…my best friend.” There was another man that had been and always would be the man of Lily’s dreams. Coming down from the calming potions she’d been downing over the last twenty or so odd years to get over her obsession with him, she had been able to suppress her true feelings - until now. “I’m freaking out,” she squeaked, squeezing her sister’s hand and spilling the cocoa all over her peplum top. “He’s coming back tomorrow to check on us. I’m going to confess, at long last, that it should have been him, foxy Professor Riddle. He should have been Harry’s father - not Severus, or even James.”

* * *

Harry stood motionless in front of Riddle while being inspected by him like a piece of meat. He’d been summoned to the classroom earlier that Friday afternoon to be there that evening to have a little one-on-one time with the Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher. He was set on becoming an Auror and needed to start acing every assignment he was given - but he wasn’t doing as well as he thought he should. He had been drooling for this moment, and could not wait to see what Riddle had planned for him. “I’m here, just as you asked, sir.” 

“Sit down in the chair, at your desk,” the older man said, gesturing to the seat front and centre of his teacher’s desk. A small smile ghosted his lips. He paced around the boy, drinking him in as he unbuttoned his own shirt. “Do you know why you’re here, Mr. Potter? Do you know why I sent for you?” 

Harry walked over to his seat. “Yes, sir.” 

Tom dropped his shirt on the floor. His hands rested on the waistband of his slacks. “Then I don’t have to tell you to put your hands behind your back and lace your fingers together so I can restrain you, do I?” 

The boy blushed as he took his seat. He put his hands behind him. “No, sir.” 

The teacher’s freshly shaved cheek slid moistly against his as Riddle leaned in to whisper in his ear. “And I don’t have to tell you again how pretty you are?” 

The twee lad smiled as Riddle bound his wrists together at the base of the chair. “You might…It couldn’t hurt.” 

Tom laughed softly to himself. “Really, inflating your ego any larger than it already is might land you in detention. Are you sure that’s something you want to risk?” He crossed the room, eased down into his high backed chair and picked up a quill. His head was down but his eyes flicked up to look at the pretty thing at his mercy. “Is it?” 

“Only if you’re the one giving it to me, sir,” Harry said. “I might welcome that.” 

Lifting a stack of parchment up, the teacher grew serious. “I need to read this over. You sit quietly until I address you again.” 

Harry relaxed into his seat, inclining his head. “Yes, sir.” 

Tom took his sweet-ass time reading the essay in front of him. He was bent over his desk, with a cigarette burning between his fingers, scanning every word while he made a lot of tongue-clucking noises. After a quarter of an hour he marked it with an A grade*. He drew a little sad face beside it, too. He held it up to the boy sitting at his desk in front of him, all the while shaking his head in disappointment. “A pity. So close - but no cigar.” It slipped from his fingers and dropped back on the desktop. “Turning in garbage like this will hardly earn you a position inside the Ministry, no matter who your father is.” 

“That’s bullshit,” Harry spat back, looking a lot less jovial than he was when he arrived. He lurched forward in his seat, but was hindered by the restraints holding him to it. “That paper is better than any other in that stack, and you know it. It’s even better than Hermione’s. I know this because I read hers before she turned hers in.” 

“That’s not the point,” Riddle explained. He flicked the ashes from his cigarette over the rubbish bin on the side of his desk before standing. He walked around to the front of his desk to lean back against it. He crossed his arms over his chest and threw up a typical Tom Riddle sneer. “You’re smarter than this. You were sleepwalking through this essay when you, and I quote, “ _wrote it_ ”. Nearly the whole thing paraphrases the encyclopedia pages on the subject. The only reason you earned the A was for your personal knowledge of cursed objects. That, my dear Gryffindor, does show slight promise.” And the main reason he had sent for the boy in the first place. 

Harry shrugged and looked away. “I know a thing or two about cursed objects.” 

“How?” Riddle heard himself ask. He pushed away from the desk and took a step toward the boy. “Have you ever seen one?” 

The boy rolled his eyes, feigning boredom. “My Godfather owns the Black family manor, sir,” he explained, seeing the man’s interest pique. “There are many cursed objects lying around all over inside. Uncle Regulus loves to show them off. He has a thing for them, too, just like he had a thing for you back when you were his teacher. We have a lot in common, Uncle Regulus and I.” 

“Oh, how special.” Riddle reached behind him and grabbed a ruler off the desk. “You sound like a spoilt little snob, Mr Potter. I do not like when my students act like spoilt little snobs in front of me. Uncle Regulus indeed. That boy was a snob while he was in school here, too.” 

“What are you going to do about it, professor,” Harry questioned him, throwing out the name he was not allowed to call this man when it was sexy time, hoping he would be corrected and that this was indeed sexy time. 

And Riddle picked up on that immediately. “You may call me ‘professor’ today, Potter. Professor Voldemort,” he corrected him. He took one last drag off his cigarette before flicking it away beside him, watching Harry slink down in his seat as he approached his desk. “As you can plainly see I’m here to instruct you for special reasons. Your teachers do not typically tie students to their desks so they can molest you. Do they, Potter?” 

“I’ll have to remind Professor Sprout that that’s a big ‘no-no’ anymore, so says my special professor, Voldemort,” Harry replied, giggling. 

“Sit up straight, boy,” Riddle ordered, smacking the ruler on the desktop, causing Harry to flinch. He moved to the back of the small desk and curled around the boy’s frame. His lips grazed the shell of Harry’s ear. “I would gut that woman like a pig if she ever touched you the way I do.” 

“And why is that, sir?” Harry dared. His head swayed to the side to brush his lips with Tom’s. He could smell the oddly enticing scent of tar on his lips, it fighting to win over the mint infused with his hot breath. “Are you a jealous creature?” 

“Because you’re mine. And I don’t like others touching my possessions, pretty one.” The teacher’s tongue flickered like a serpent, breaking through the barrier of Harry’s closed mouth, to scrape it along the tops of his teeth. He captured his soft face as he kissed him, dying to touch and suck on every part of his young spirited form. Long fingers dropped over Harry’s shoulder. They moved slowly down the length of the boy’s torso, unbuttoning his linen shirt while their tongues twisted together as one. 

Harry let his head loll back against the man’s pelvis for much needed breath. “I’m wondering, sir, if theres any way I could talk you into giving me a better grade on that essay. My father will be so cross if I come back with a mere A. He may punish me; spank me really hard over his knee, for as long as it takes before I get the point.” The boy nuzzled back against the straining phallus trapped behind the teacher’s trousers. He was looking up at the man, pleading with him through doe eyes while he pressed his lips to the bulge, kissing it. “You don’t really want me to suffer like that, do you? I’d do anything you asked of me…anything you desire, sir.” 

Riddle shivered. He exhaled ice-cold mist that chilled the room. “We’ll have to do something about that then. I won’t allow your father touching you in such a way; that’s my job.” The fire in his coveting eyes warmed the room again. “Get your head back,” the man told Harry. He grabbed a handful of unruly hair and made the boy edge backward in his seat. He bent his neck back as far as it would go, so that his mouth was freely able to get seriously fucked by him. 

Harry’s bound hands splayed out and clenched into fists behind his back, feeling for anything to grab onto as Riddle unzipped his own trousers and took his enormous prick in hand. “Dying to please you, sir. I want you to see that I’m better than a mere A. Let me prove it to you. I’m the best.” 

Riddle stood firmly over him as an authority figure might, dictating to his pupil what he wanted and expected from him. “Let’s see that tongue, boy. And get your legs apart, far apart and keep them open.” He tapped the ruler on each of Harry’s inner thighs to get them open enough so the boy could not get himself off with any sort of friction between them. He flicked the ruler upward, clipping an exposed areola, causing Harry to wince. Pleased with this setting, with the boy draped back over the seat and ready to blow him, Riddle shoved his cock into the boy’s mouth. “Don’t waver. Keep those legs apart and don’t stop sucking until I say.” 

Harry screwed his eyes shut, enduring the sting of the ruler while Riddle ruthlessly smacked each of his nipples with it in an uneven pattern so he would have no idea when it was coming. Harry’s neck was craned back to the limit. The thrusts to reach his gag reflex were nearly impossible to endure for much longer, but he did his best to stay slack-throated, and used the flat of his tongue as an anchor to keep the pressure on Riddle’s cock strong and constant. 

“Bloody hell, boy. You are such a good lad,” Riddle whispered, with his fingers curling around Harry’s jaw. He pulled out and smacked the wounded peaks of his nipples one last time with the ruler to make the boy gasp. Taking advantage of that pretty opened mouth, he wedged a thick ball within it to keep Harry all nice and quiet, just the way he liked him while he toyed with his boy. He buckled the straps attached to it at the nape of Harry’s slender neck, wrenched the boy up out of the seat and doubled him over with a shoulder. He lifted him up and carried him over to the teacher’s desk, where he deposited him over the side, bending him at the waist. 

Riddle dropped down in his high-backed chair so that he was face-to-arse with his favourite student. He moved the chair forward to be as close to the boy as possible while unbuttoning his school trousers, sliding them and his undies down past his hips. Harry’s pert little ass was such a sight. “Don’t you dare move while I tongue-fuck you, my little pussy. That alone will cost you a grade.” He smacked the boy on the arse a few times to feel it jiggle under his palm. It was breathtaking, wonderfully heart-shaped, and it begged him to eat it. 

Harry’s eyes fluttered closed. He relaxed over the desk, letting Riddle graze his backside with the tips of his fingers, goosing the exposed skin taut. Riddle began working his tongue between the flesh while inhaling the fresh soapy scent of Harry’s skin. The man’s tongue worked like the rest of his beautiful body; be it long, daunting, relentless and poisonous like the snake that he was. He blatantly ignored Harry’s heavy panting from working his tongue inside him, he being focused only on making Harry come all over the desk. He wanted to prove to the boy that he truly was a master. He fucked him hard with it, while his fingers teased the overtly sensitive skin surrounding the inviting entrance. Harry quivered and rocked back against it to get Tom in further, deeper, as far as he could go. 

A damp hand came to stroke the boy’s pretty prick so lovingly, coaxing him to relent any trepidation, to indulge in the thrilling gift Tom was granting him. The slick tongue moved downward along the skin, and hot lips suctioned over his balls. Tom pulled Harry’s hips up, brought his knees up to rest in his lap for better manoeuvring and manipulation. He leaned in fully, wiggled his tongue along the flesh trapped inside his mouth while Harry rasped. Tom could feel the boy’s balls tighten while watching his trapped hands clench up behind his back from too much pleasure. Harry began to tense up, to hold his breath as euphoria overwhelmed his being. He came hard and strong, no longer caring what else Riddle had in store for him. He had died and went to heaven, and that’s all that mattered anymore. 

Before he hoped to recover, Harry felt one of Riddle’s long digits slip inside of him, followed by another. And then Riddle was bent over his pretty boy, whispering in his ear. “You’re going to sit on my cock now. I’m going to fuck that pretty ass of yours, puss. I’m going to make your father miss the opportunity to spank any part of you.” His free hand groped the boy’s heart-shaped ass while the other slithered in deeper. Harry mewed and whimpered so prettily for his master while he wiggled up against him. He went limp when he was hefted up and dropped into his teacher’s lap. 

Riddle lifted the boy’s chin to look at him. Harry was trembling for him. He was so frightened, yet so enthralled with basking in so much power. Tom was a god to this boy, he was his saviour, his salvation. He pulled Harry into his embrace and unbuckled the ball gag so he could kiss him while he simultaneously fucked him. 

Harry arched, gasping when Tom moved to enter him. His head fell back as he adjusted to the painful sensation of having something so massive trying to work its way inside something not quite ready for it. He stiffened up, unable to hide the pain.

The startling gasps he emanated merely bewitched the Dark Lord more. “Oh, sweet boy,” Riddle praised. “Don’t try too hard to please me. I don’t want you broken. You should have told me you’d never done this before.” He stroked Harry’s hair to brush the damp strands caked to his forehead away. 

“I didn’t want to,” Harry confessed. He fell against Tom while the man made things more comfortable for him. “I didn’t want you to think less of me, but I wanted you to be my first.” 

“What a beautiful thing to say. How ever could I think less of you for giving me your chastity?” Tom coiled an arm around him and leaned back in his chair for leverage while he untied the boy’s hands. 

Harry sighed in Tom’s lap. They were so close, their skin touching all over. It was everything he had ever hoped for, and it was delivering like he could not believe. “I’ve always wanted you to be my first, professor, and my last, and my only one.” 

“I am and I will be. You and me…we’re going all the way together, to the very end.” Tom was utterly smitten, he could not stop himself from kissing and fawning all over the the most valuable thing he had ever acquired. “Put your arms around me, cross your ankles and hold yourself up when it hurts too much. You let me know if I’m hurting my little pussy.” 

“Yes, sir,” Harry whispered. 

“And no one, Harry,” Lord Voldemort said, holding the boy by the neck to show him the points of his teeth and the venom leaking from his fangs, “no one else touches you, not ever. Not as long as I walk the earth. I promise you this.” 

Harry tucked his face in the crook of the mans neck as he circled his arms around him. “ _~I promise, too.~_ ” 

It was Tom’s turn to gasp. He took Harry by the chin, ever so gently. He managed a laugh, so impressed with the words the boy spoke back to him in Parseltongue. “You said that perfectly, I nearly missed it. Where did you learn to speak any Parseltongue?” 

“That’s a secret,” Harry replied, grinning, so pleased that he aroused the man with more than just sex. 

“We all have secrets.” The softness in Tom’s eyes hardened. With his fingers tangled into Harry’s hair to ease his head back down to the crook of his neck, he claimed the very last of the boy’s innocence as his own.

* * *

In the darkness filled with quiet, lightning erupted, flashing brightly to illuminate Professor Riddle’s chambers. Harry inhaled a much-needed breath. He coiled his arms around Nagini, looking desperately for comfort. The sounds of bad synthesiser music began to grow as a corpse of a teenager dropped down from the ceiling and hung swaying, blocking the heroine’s way outside. “Oh Merlin’s whore, this movie is the worst. _Get the hell outta the house, witch! Run! ”_  

Nagini would have covered her ears if she had hands. She chose instead to abandon Harry and hide under the bed in the next room. “Yeah, yeah, typical Slytherin. Go on, bury your head in shame while you’re at it,” Harry teased. With the snake gone, he curled up to the warm body lying silent across the sofa with him. 

It was moments like these, just casually sitting beside Riddle, watching a movie while he napped, that turned normally boring times into heartfelt unions of closeness between them. And Merlin did Riddle like to nap, but not because he was as old as dirt (as he kept correcting Harry about), but because being so brilliant burned up far more energy than the average non-thinking wizard or witch’s simple mind might. 

Harry loved to touch the velvet-like skin on Riddle’s ankles; the spots on his leg where the hair stopped growing, and had been protected behind cotton socks every day over the last seven decades. He would trace the lines of veins and around the raised bones, just relishing in how soft it was, how good it made him feel as it registered from under the pads of his fingers, that travelled up to his mind. It made Tom shiver and his flesh goose up on his legs, and sometimes his teeth would chatter from it, which made the little act all the more enticing to do. 

And when the movie got scary, with loads of jumpy parts, Harry leaned up against Riddle’s bent legs and hugged them while he hid his face in the dark area between them. He removed his glasses so he could cram his face further between his professor’s bare calves to block out all sight and sound. Eventually, he crawled through them so he could snuggle up with the sleeping man along the length of the couch. He flicked a finger at the television to wandlessly shut it off, and drifted off into slumber, with his arm draped over Riddle’s waist and his face tucked in side of the man’s neck. 

* * *

He was aroused from slumber with a kiss. He rubbed his eyes and groped around for his glasses, but felt his arms get pinioned to his sides. The chambers were still dark. Harry struggled to sit up, to see with his own eyes who was on top of him; be it Riddle…or the other one - Voldemort. “Professor, wait,” he managed to squeak out between bouts of suffocation. “I wasn’t ready. I wasn’t ready.” 

“I know, Potter, that’s the point.” As if Riddle had snapped and released the monster chained up inside him, Tom was not Tom at that moment. He was a man possessed, he was Lord Voldemort, and he was honouring the prophesy by murdering this wretch of a child who would ultimately be his downfall - or not. Riddle would never allow that to happen, but it didn’t hurt to try. “You were completely at my mercy, I had to strike.” 

“So you like it when it’s easy,” Harry hissed up at him. “I’d call you a pussy but that would be an insult to pussies, because they can take a really good pounding - unlike you.” 

“What did you say, you little smart-ass?” Tom sat back on his knees, scowling. He watched Harry scramble to back up to the other side of the sofa in a defencive posture. He snatched out, grabbing an ankle before Harry could back off any further. He dragged the boy back along the length of the sofa until he was beneath him again. He slapped off the fists flying at his face, trapping, pinning Harry’s limbs and torso down so he could drape his body on top of him and keep him where he wanted him. “Maybe taking advantage of a situation is more clever than stark, arrogant bravery. Maybe being a pussy is why I’m still on top.” 

“You keep telling yourself that.” In the darkness, without his glasses or a fair knowledge of his surroundings, Harry felt his odds slide out of his favour, which stirred his incipient libido to life. Riddle’s lips were on his throat, while his hands yanked hindering clothing out of the way. He could feel the teacher’s teeth latch onto the skin on the side of his neck, with the tip of his tongue kneading at the trapped flesh. Harry screwed his face up at the pain and fear, and the excitement it brought with them. He had been training himself to stop saying things like, _“this is so fucking hot”_ or “ _keep humping me, bout to shoot my wad”_ because Riddle did not receive those phrases well, and usually stopped molesting him after he said them. Riddle responded very well to sayings like, _“you can’t win”_ and _“I’m better than you”_ far greater than acknowledging that he enjoyed their little romps in the sack together. 

“Gods, are you even trying?” Riddle blurted out through their struggling. He flipped Harry over with a rough arm twisting and pinned his face down over a fluffy pillow. He was panting for breath, so close to losing grip over Harry despite their size difference. It was true that he was no spring chicken any more, and the rowdy teenager was at peak physical health, levelling out the battlefield between them. 

“You haven’t even got my undies off,” Harry managed to say as he pushed back from the sofa cushions to throw Tom off-balance. He swivelled and pounced, and had Riddle pinned down in a matter of seconds. He locked his limbs, gnashed his teeth, wandessly flipped the lights on and fought as hard as he could to keep the man down, until Riddle went limp. Having won, and feeling the emanating evil of Voldemort flit away, Harry kissed Riddle’s pursed lips before snagging his wrist to look at his watch. “It’s not yet midnight.” He dropped Tom’s hand and sat up on top of him, grinning. “The night is still young, old man. Take me out.” 

“Take you out? Where?” 

“On a date. Somewhere, anywhere.” Harry reached down and grabbed his jeans on the floor beside them. “Somewhere scary, really scary. Will you?” 

“Breathe, Potter.” The boy was looking at him in such a way, as if he were a mystical genie deciding on whether or not to grant him a wish. Riddle’s mind began to prod at him. “Well, I do need to release Snape _*cough*and your mum*cough*_ , but I was going to do that tomorrow…” There was another place he wanted to go, and Harry was a miracle of sorts, a godsend for him. The boy was gifted with his magic and he was as sharp as a tack. Harry could help him do what was long overdue and not even have a clue to what he was doing for him. And if the boy wanted it to be scary, he was going to be in bloody Valhalla once they got there. 

Tom stood up and crossed the room to throw his wardrobe open so he could find something warm to wear. He turned back, looking Potter up and down. “Do you own a cold weather jacket?” 

Harry shrugged. “Yeah, sure.” A little smile crept up on his lips, intrigued. “May I ask why?” 

Tom grinned back at him. He looked so charming, so very in control of any situation thrown his way at that moment. “You want me to take you out, right?” 

“You really will?” Harry was beside himself. No one had ever taken him anywhere besides his Godfather or parents, and that was only to the circus or to the movies or someplace boring he didn’t want to go to anyway. But now he was going out on a date with the most amazing man in the whole world. He did not care if Riddle took him to the emptiness of limbo itself, as long as it was he who took him there. 

Tom tipped his head thoughtfully, noting the grin plastered on the boy’s surprised face. “What are you waiting on? Summon it and meet me at the gates. Don’t let Filch catch you, use the cloak.” 

“Okay!” Harry’s heart was thumping harder than it was during their little tussle on the sofa a moment back, or even the earlier that night when he went all the way with the teacher. He bit down on his bottom lip to hold in the scream he was dying to emit. Riddle gave him so much life. Nothing before ever came close to this. “Do I need to bring anything else, professor? Anything at all?” 

Tom’s large eyes scanned the boy’s body for a moment before centring on his face. “Just bring your pretty self. Five minutes, yes?” He slung his trench coat over his shoulder and left the chambers, leaving Harry drooling for more. 

The boy who had it all was willing to throw it all away to keep this in his life. Tom Riddle was everything he’d dreamt about, far greater a wizard than his research had showed him; he was a very skilled and powerful wizard, perhaps the most powerful of their time. He was at the very least in the top three. He was the whole package, a real kick in the teeth to his hardly-there father. He was getting what he needed from the older teacher and then some, from a man who daddy loathed. Life was delicious. 

Harry summoned his backpack, containing his cloak and something else. He looked around the chamber carefully to be sure the teacher was gone before pulling a leather-bound book from inside. He opened it, taking Riddle’s quill from his desk and wrote: **He’s taking me out. I can’t believe it, on some sort of adventure. Where do you think he’ll take me?**  

The book’s pages were blank, and the words the boy jotted inside quickly disappeared, only to be replaced with an apt reply: **I haven’t a clue. You simply must keep me posted, I want to hear about every detail.**  

Harry wrote one more sentence before stuffing the book back into his bag: **Seeing as you’re the only person in the world besides Riddle himself I can talk to or write to about what happens between us, you can bet your arse I’ll tell you all about it just as soon as its ended.**  

* * *

“Pay attention, Potter, this place is completely unstable.” With the boy’s hand trapped within his, Tom entered the delapidated mansion that his father grew up in. He led the boy to the drawing room, a place where he met his father, grandmother and grandfather a long time ago, and then promptly murdered them after learning how his father treated his mother, leaving her to die simply because she was a witch. “Remember we talked about cursed objects?” 

Harry shivered. The inside of the manor resonated with death. His breathing quickened in pace as he listened to his teacher explain to him what he had done inside the room they were standing in. His heart skipped a beat. The instant Tom told him he’d murdered three people in that very room Harry tried to run, but the man was still holding his hand and refused to let go. 

Tom pulled the boy into his arms and struggled to keep him from fleeing while he smoothed his wild hair and spoke calming words. “You can never tell anyone about this, so don’t even bother trying. I need you to understand who I was then when I was your age, and what I was destined to become.” He held Harry out by the arms in front of him, forcing him to look at him. “It was taken from me, my fate was forever altered, and maybe that’s a good thing. Maybe that’s exactly what I needed to happen to me before I went too far.” 

Harry began to relax when he was certain Riddle had not brought him there to murder him, too. “Why are you telling me this?” he implored, stunned to find out that Riddle was way more wicked that he could possibly imagine. He was a murderer. 

“Because I made a cursed object through the murder of my father. It’s pure evil and needs to be destroyed. I, myself, cannot destroy it no matter how I try or what I do, but you,” he said, giving the boy a small smile for the first time since they arrived at Riddle House, “You, my dear boy, very much can.” 

“How?” Harry looked around in the darkness. 

There was a caretaker wandering around the grounds in search of the intruders. 

The boy grew nervous, fearing they were breaking some laws by just being there, especially in a place where the teacher had murdered his family. “Where is it? Can we take it from here and destroy it somewhere else?” 

Tom snorted. “Don’t be afraid of a little old Muggle, puss.” He pulled Harry back into his arm and raised his wand overhead. “It’s not here. I hid it somewhere else. I’ll take you there now.” 

* * *

The calling was biting at Riddle’s ankles. He knelt down on the floor inside the collapsed shack he had hidden the Horcrux in. He broke the floorboards and pulled out a golden box. Still on his knees, he opened it in front of Harry, presenting him the ring that lay inside, but flinched back when the boy reached to touch it. “Wait-it’s cursed, remember?” 

Harry wrapped his arms around himself to trap the heat inside his jacket somewhat, but to mostly hug himself for comfort. His eyes roamed around the ruins they were standing in. There were more invisible ghosts of the past haunting them, making it very uncomfortable to stay inside. “Can we go back before I destroy it? Please?” 

“No, it has to be here,” Riddle told him. The golden box fell to the floor. Riddle held the ring up to a beam of moonlight, watching the ugly, crudely made object glimmer as it bathed within it. He set it down on a broken wall, and pulled Harry back some steps behind. “Draw your wand,” he said, tapping the boy’s arm. “And listen to exactly what I say. I’m going to have you cast an extremely powerful spell. You have to stay still, any sort of movement will cause it to become unstable and could possibly kill us both.” 

Harry was trembling like a leaf, having never once cast a spell that had the potential to kill someone. He listened to the professor as he explained what needed to be done, and steeled himself to cast it, but Riddle stopped him again. 

“There’s one more thing,” he said, in almost a whisper. The calling was screaming in his head. They had to do this now. It had to be destroyed now. “I need you to stun me or bind me before you cast it. I don’t know what I am capable of, or what might happen once it’s been destroyed.” 

“No!” Harry cried, already nearly pissing his pants over this ‘date’. “You want me to incapacitate you so I can cast a deadly, unstable spell to destroy this cursed object - by myself? You’re barking!” 

Riddle clenched his teeth to fight off grabbing the boy and disapparating back to Hogwarts. It was now or never. These things had to be destroyed. There was no other way to die with them being left intact. “Stun me!” he commanded, with his eyes changing, glowing a fiery scarlet as he lunged threateningly at Harry, scaring the boy witless. 

Harry fell backward with Riddle on top of him, having stunned him just as he asked. He rubbed the back of his head for a moment, before rolling Tom onto his back. He bent over him, checking to see if he was unharmed before placing a small kiss on his lips. “I can do this,” he whispered. 

He stood up to face the ring. He steadied himself so he would not waver, and cast the Horcrux-destroying Fiendfyre in its direction.

* * *

When it was over, Harry dropped down on the ground beside his teacher. “Wake up.” 

Tom opened his eyes. “We have to go,” he chanted mechanically, fully unable to stop himself from saying it. 

Harry helped him stand. He dropped a black stone, the only thing remaining of the gold ring after destroying it and the curse, into the palm of the teacher’s hand. He put Riddle’s arm around his shoulders to hold up his weight, to disapparate them both. “Let’s go home.” 

Weak and dizzied, Riddle stared blankly at the Resurrection Stone, without even knowing what it was. It was done. He could not feel any power from the Horcrux emanating from it any more. It sat lifeless, or so he thought, missing the figure of a diminutive woman watching him from behind. He pocketed it to wrap his arms around Harry. The woman disappeared. “Yes, take me home.” 


	5. Tongue-Tied

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> As another typical weekend passes things start to change. Tom and Harry have become quite comfortable together, smoothing out the wrinkles that creased both of their lives. But somebody upstairs just so happens to like when things don't go well. A mystery is presented, an adventure begins to brew. Neville Longbottom goes missing, and Harry suspects it has a lot to do with the current Dark Lord, the same man who just sent him a letter asking him to join the Darkharts.

**The Next Saturday Morning**

 

Tom painstakingly jotted down the words he had been writing for decades on a slip of parchment, and marked it with his monogram seal. Even with his lover’s head resting in his lap, still deep in slumber, Tom wrote as he always wrote in the morning, before the sun rose and the roosters crowed. It needed to be done, he did this every day. The letter needed to be written and delivered before it was too late. 

“Don’t mind me,” he whispered, and brushed Harry’s eyelids closed with the pads of his fingers. The child was exhausted, his magical energy spent past its reserves, to destroy a wicked reminder of Riddle’s sordid history. He needed this boy to recover so he could do it again, and soon. The longer he remained alive, the more Riddle suffered. 

Harry was clinging to his lower half, with his arms and legs wrapped around Tom’s right thigh as he slept. He trembled and flinched with nightmares throughout the evening. Riddle felt it was in both of their best interests that he remain awake to guide Harry through them. Even if Tom lived this slave life, it did not mean that Harry needed to follow in his footsteps. He would train the boy with every one of his secrets, with every form of banned magic he knew, so Harry would never become trapped as he had, like a fool. 

With his resignation set in ink, and after waiting until he felt Harry had had enough rest, Tom slithered out of Harry’s grip and stood up from the bed to get dressed. He was utterly shocked that no one had come to look for the Gryffindor all night, assuming they would be caught in the act at any time. Being unable to confess to anyone other than Potter himself about the things they’d done together, the teacher was baffled. When he made his vow with the boy to never speak of what they did together, he had not included himself when he sealed it with a tongue-tying curse, or any of the other curses that disallowed Harry from telling another living soul about their tryst. Perhaps it was a mistake to silence the boy. 

“Ugh, professor, get back here,” Harry whined. He groped around to recapture the warmth of the professor’s body without having to open his eyes. “Come back to bed.” 

”I’ll be back once this is delivered. You and me have another date today. Try and get a shower in-err…” he said aloud until he thought more about it. Harry, showing up to the Dursley’s home looking like death warmed over with the scent of raunchy sex permeating off his person, might get at least his father somewhat chuffed. He shrugged at the pretty lad as he watched him put his glasses on and scout around for his clothing. “Never mind that, you look fine. Just meet me at the gates under the cloak at noon so we can go set your mother free.” 

“Hooray, we’re off to set mummy free,” Harry said in an overtly condescending manner. He tossed his little briefs at the professor, hitting him in the face with them. “I hope my father is still there trying to get her out and beats yours and Snape’s arses.” 

Tom began to laugh, something he had not done freely in many, many years. The laughter grew in volume and intensity the more he thought about what Harry said. He peeled the undergarment off of his face and stuffed it in his trouser pocket, threw open the outer chamber door, gave Harry a rude gesture and left the room.

“I need those back, you pig!” Harry shouted. Being left alone again, he sighed as he pulled out his diary and dropped back against the mattress, set to tell the younger version of his lover all about the insane evening they had together the night before. 

* * *

Tom hit the ground floor and made his way toward the headmaster’s tower, as he did every morning. Things were looking up: good sex was had, a Horcrux he had created had been destroyed, and he had kept Lily Potter trapped inside her sister’s home for the entire week. He hoped she and Snape were getting on as well as he had been doing with her son. Life felt almost bearable, it was good, or something. Or was it… 

“Oh bloody hell, Ravenclaws.” Tom sidestepped a statue to avoid a throng of students heading in his direction. The visibly distinct and ugly colours blue and bronze stitched onto their school robes pained his eyes. A sneer curled up on his lip. He ducked behind the statue and held his breath praying they did not see him. 

“We saw you.” 

With a sigh, Tom peeked out at them. Two of them, Prefects, Blaise Zabini-Weasley and Luna Lovegood, were leading the pack. Their wisdom sparked, telling their subconscious selves that he was a threat. In a heartbeat, both of them shielded the younger students, the more vulnerable Ravenclaws behind them, and made crude crosses with their index fingers. They held them up in front of them as Professor Riddle stepped out into the open and approached. 

He stopped, aghast. “Are you seriously holding up crosses at me-yes, apparently you are.” He sighed as the two backed away from him, and decided not to charge at both of them to make them piss themselves. “Lucky for both of you I have places to be.” Instead, he walked in the other direction, which was also a huge mistake. 

Pansy and Draco had their wands pointed at the teacher, who growled as he harmlessly slapped away their mind altering incantations. Both Slytherins gaped in awe at the man’s ease at spell deflection, almost mindlessly brushing them off like an annoying gnat buzzing around him. “I do not have time for this!” Riddle shouted, scowling as he took after the Ravenclaws to frighten them off. He whirled around on a heel, his own wand now raised at his brethren. “And you two; I’m over it. I don’t give a flying fuck whether you tricked me and got me wasted - Leave me alone!” 

“Yes, sir!” they both cried as they jaunted away from him back down the hall as fast as they could. 

“Students are so bloody annoying!” Riddle huffed, eyeing the headmaster and his companion, Minerva, through a window as they took their morning walk through the back gardens. He pushed his head out and called to them, and then watched both of then visibly cringe as they turned to his direction. Tom held up the folded letter and tossed it out of the window. 

* * *

 **So, what you’re telling me is there are two Tom Riddles.**  

 **I don’t have time to explain this in detail, he expects me to be at the gates in thirty minutes. Please try and open your mind, I've spent far too much time trying to get you to understand, LV.** Harry sighed. Conversing via a diary with the memory of a sixteen-year-old Tom Riddle deemed a lot more difficult than one might think. Young Riddle had tunnel vision, and his ideals were antiquated and just down right rude. **One body, two personalities. I don’t think he knows he’s got a split personality, but he does. He plays Lord Voldemort when we’re getting frisky but that’s not really Lord Voldemort.**  

 **Stop. You’ve lost me again.**  

 **What’s not to understand?!** The Gryffindor snarled as he scribbled out another sentence. **Honestly, you are him, you are Tom Riddle and you are Lord Voldemort - how the eff do you not understand what I’m saying here?**  

 **Yes, I am formally named Tom Riddle, now Lord Voldemort, Harry, but we’re both one and the same. We are the same entity, I merely changed my name.**  

Harry nodded unconsciously. **Yeah, I get that. You went by Tom Riddle. He is Tom Riddle, he calls himself Lord Voldemort when we’re screwing, but he is still Tom Riddle. Then there’s Lord Voldemort. He shows up sometimes, usually when I least expect it. They are one and the same, but they are so different.**  

 **Well, how? How can you tell the two apart if they look exactly the same?**  

Thinking on it, Harry found it difficult to articulate what gave him the impression that his professor was taking on his alter ego. **He acts completely different than Riddle. He’s menacing, bitterly so, angry, likes to try to hurt me, to best me whenever he can. You can feel it resonating off of him - Evil. You can see it in the way he looks at you, and you can hear it in his voice. It changes when he’s Lord Voldemort; it’s a cold, high-pitched, devoid of emotion, slightly effeminate voice. And he cackles rather than laughs normally - which Riddle hardly ever does to begin with. It is very different than the professor’s.**  

 **Cackles? Effeminate?! You take that back!**  

 **That’s the part of the description that insulted you? Not the “he resonates pure evil” part or where I said he tries to kill me? Jesus, LV!**  

 **Fuck off!**  

 **Oh, come on, LV, don’t be cross with me. I didn’t mean to upset you. Okay, okay, I take it back. You/he/it whatthefuckever are not slightly effeminate and you do not cackle. Hello!?**  

But there were no more words. The memory of a young Tom Riddle was kind of a dick. 

Harry’s lip curled up in a sneer as he stuffed the diary under his mattress. He had returned to his dorm after being summoned by his owl, set to deliver something to him. He unfolded the letter he had received to read it over again. It was sent personally from the Dark Lord himself, the most dangerous man in the world,the evil G-Roy, asking him to join his army of DarkHarts, to accept his mark and take his rightful place at his side. Harry snorted. “Yeah, right,” he muttered. He balled it up, threw it up in the air and incinerated it with a flick of his finger. 

 _“When did you learn to do wandless magic?!”_  

Harry jumped. He sat up on his bed as his best friend, Hermione, entered the dorm room and sat down beside him. “I didn’t know you could do that. It’s brilliant!” 

“You-Know-Who taught me,” Harry replied, before grabbing Hermione around the middle and wrestling her on the bed. “The man of my dreams. The man I cannot speak of whenever I want to talk about me sucking hssssssssss…you know.” He held her down to the mattress by the shoulders until she looked as if she might cry. Harry sighed as he flopped back into the bedding beside her. “What’s your problem?” 

“I didn’t come here to be manhandled by you, Harry,” she said as she rolled over on top of him to hold him down this time. “Ha, you fell for it again! Boys will never learn.” 

“Oh, I’m so sorry I don’t want to make girls cry,” Harry hissed back. “Back off, woman, before I wandlessly set your hair on fire like I did that letter.” 

“Whatever.” She backed off of him and smoothed out her crumpled skirt over her lap. “Anyway, the reason I barged in here is because I wanted to tell you that Neville Longbottom’s gone missing!” 

“He’s gone missing-Ohmygods!” Harry replied in dramatic fashion, mocking the Head Girl. “No seriously, what do you mean? Where’s he gone?” 

“If I knew where he’d gone he wouldn’t be missing, plonker.” She knocked on the boy’s skull. “Hello!? He’s m-i-s-s-i-n-g!” 

“Like maybe he’s been kidnapped?” Harry grinned inappropriately. “This could turn out to be an adventure!” 

“Well, he did get a strange letter this morning,” Hermione remembered. She shrugged, adventures always sounded daunting to her. “Oh, I’m sure that’s just a coincidence.” 

Harry stopped himself from shaking her. “Letter? Who was it from? I got a letter, too, from that bad guy, Lockhart.” 

Hermione’s mouth fell open. “Are you serious? Neville’s letter was from G-Roy too!” 

“You think he ran off to join him?” Harry whispered to her, getting to his knees. He began bouncing on the mattress. “Neville doesn’t have two braincells to rub together, ‘mione. How could he escape Hogwarts undetected to run off and join that villain?” 

“Villain?” Hermione asked, arching a quizzical brow. “I thought you felt ‘he might have the right idea’? What changed your mind?” 

Harry grinned. “Many reasons I’m not able to articulate. The one I can talk about was hearing my father say that phrase to Uncle Sirius one night over the summer, I just repeated what he said just to piss off You-Know-Who. But to be honest, I have no idea what G-Roy is up to, or even what he represents.” 

“And that’s why you feel that Neville wouldn’t run off to join him, right?” 

“Exactly,” Harry replied. He tipped his head in seriousness for the first time that day. “Something isn’t right. Keep your ears open. Adventures are to be had, I’m certain.” 

“I will,” Hermione agreed. “We’ll find out what’s going on.”

* * *

Albus and Minerva closed their mouths as they watched the folded parchment soar towards the headmaster. Albus looked away to hide the eye-roll he always made when Tom gave him a resignation letter. He sighed as he caught it. Without words, he flicked it behind him, igniting it the instant it left his fingers so it would disintegrate into ash and drift away in the breeze. 

Tom looked horrified, as he always did when Albus disregarded his pleas to be sacked. “Are you fucking kidding me?” 

“Language, Riddle!” Minerva shot back. 

“Will you accept it or not, Dumbledore?” Tom yelled, ignoring the Transfiguration teacher. 

“No, not at this time, Tom. Sorry,” Albus replied. He hooked his arm with Minerva’s to swivel her around. “Have a good day.” 

A swell of hatred burgeoned over within Tom’s insides. “Yeah, it’s gonna be a very good day! I’m going to have my way with Haaaaaaaappppoooooh…Oh, screw it - and screw both of you!” 

“Language, Riddle!” Minerva repeated without looking back. 

With a pouty-faced sigh, Tom pulled his head back in and shook it in disbelief. He turned toward the front of the castle. He needed to get out of this place for a while, even if it was to be confronted by several ex-Gryffindors over bricking one of their wives up. He could not understand why Dumbledore constantly ignored his pleas. How many letters was it going to take?

* * *

**Saturday Afternoon**

 

“What in the hell are you doing taking my son off the grounds, Professor Riddle?” 

“Morning to you too.” Tom and Harry grinned at James Potter as they made their way up the walk, joining Harry’s father, his Godfather and a very worn-down-looking Remus Lupin, all of whom were standing on the stoop of the Dursley homestead. “Your wife signed a permission form at the start of the year allowing us authority figures to bring your boy along on special trips. I’m considering this special, very special. So here we are,” Riddle replied, with his blood-shot eyes flashing as bright as his grin. “Step aside so I can get this going.” 

Harry was eating this event up. His father and Godfather were frothing at the mouth while Lupin was champing at the bit at this brazen act of defiance performed by a teacher, who, on his own, had made their near-perfect lives at Hogwarts a little less perfect. “Been out here all week?” he asked, noting the wrinkles in his father’s tailored suit, as well as the bags under his and Black’s eyes. 

“Maybe,” Sirius replied. He was eyeing his Godson carefully. The boy looked like he had been wresting a troll all night, and he was not certain why but knew that if he changed into dog form he would be able to tell what he had really been doing judging by his scent. And Riddle looked amazing, better than he did when he, James and Remus attended school some twenty-something years back. His grey eyes narrowed on the old teacher, something was definitely afoot. “Did you know your mum was trapped inside there with Snivellus?” 

“Yep,” Harry said. “They got exposed to…” He paused to grab Riddle’s little finger to give the man a shake. “What was it, professor?” 

Sirius caught it. His mouth dropped open. “Uh…” 

“Dragon Pox,” Riddle informed the boy as he tossed him a wink. He gave Harry’s hand a gentle squeeze in return as he addressed his father. “Such a brilliant lad you have here, Potter. My newest protege.” 

“I’m his pet,” Harry added, tipping his head to rest it on Riddle’s upper arm. “He’s teaching me everything he knows about magic. Did you know that he can fly? Seriously, without using a broom or a motorbike!” 

“That’s enough,” Black blurted as he separated the boy from his teacher. He shoved Harry at his father so he could wag a finger at Riddle. “Are you going to take these wards down some time today, or what?” 

Riddle decidedly ignored him so he could address Remus. He tipped his head to the side in curiosity. “How are you, Lupin? I hope you don’t mind me saying but you don’t look well. I’ll get these wards down, have Severus take a look at-” 

“I’m fine,” Remus blurted back. He crossed his arms over his chest as he shuffled around, overwrought. 

Up close, Tom noted the scarring that had always been noticeable on the man’s face had grown in intensity and in numbers. The man looked half-dead, and testy, and worried all at once. And there was something clinging to his collar that could not be overlooked by such a cunning, intelligent and quizzical person; a little clump of pelted grey fur. The teacher’s eyes narrowed as he leaned in for a better look. He patted his pockets for his bifocals as he honed in closer, but the elder Potter would have none of this. 

“Take down these wards and release my wife, Riddle. We know it was you who trapped her inside. Not only are these wards not stripping, but Lily confirmed to us with a sign she held up to the window,” the man argued, pointing at the front door. He was so handsome, tall, fit and a complete asshole; he was the total package, and he looked so much like Harry. Riddle had to remind himself that this was the very same pain-in-the-arse boy who enjoyed hanging random Slytherins upside down by their ankles to impress the girls during his tenure at the school. 

James was dressed in a tailored suit, with a Gryffindor-coloured tie and pocket square that made the teacher want to hurl up his breakfast if he had eaten breakfast. But Riddle saw something he had not expected in the man’s fraught expression; he seemed more hurt by him secluding his wife than vicious at that moment. He could also hear the pain in his badgering. “You have always favoured that greasy vampire, Snape, but it was all for not - she still loves me.” 

“Why wouldn’t she? She’s your wife, isn’t she?” Tom asked him, only to be clipped by Harry, who had slipped an arm out past his Godfather so he could smack at his teacher. 

“You know what he means,” the boy reminded Riddle, until the vow he had been cursed with took liberties of shutting him up. “I was there whhhhhhh…you both think mum’s beeeeeeennnah. Dammit, professor, I thought you said you removed the curse back at the gates.” 

Tom looked perplexed. “I did remove it.” Finding himself unable to speak of Harry’s and his affair had thrown a spoke into his wheels so he revoked it from Harry. They should have been able to speak freely about it, but that did not seem so. 

A little rat-faced man ran up to the stoop. Riddle recognised him immediately as the fourth and final Marauder, Peter Pettigrew. “Yech.” Tom drew his wand and dissipated the wards before anyone else showed up to confront him. 

Peter was out of breath. He bent forward, putting his hands on his knees to catch it. He looked up at the small crowd of wizards littering the stoop. “Sorry I’m late! My mummy made my favourite-Oh, hello, Professor Riddle! Fancy seeing you here!” 

“Ohmygods-open,” Riddle hissed at the wards while they took their sweet-assed time dissolving. He glanced back over his shoulder to acknowledge newcomer. “Hello, Peter.” 

Pettigrew grinned as he wobbled on the balls of his feet. “Boy-oh-boy, it sure has been ages since the last time I saw you, I-” 

“Ah, Severus, there you are!” Riddle cried, as the door flung open and Snape and Lily peered outside. The almost-Dark Lord pushed them back to make room so he could enter. He snatched Harry up by an arm and dragged him in with him, too. 

James, Sirius, Remus and Peter stepped into the doorway, but found it still very much blocked. “Hey!”

* * *

Lily threw her arms around Tom’s neck, and bent him forward for a good, long hug. Harry and the Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher both witnessed the scowl Petunia, Vernon, Dudley, Marge and Severus were displaying. 

“Thank you so much for thinking so fondly of us to keep us safe, and getting us healthy again, Professor Riddle,” Lily gushed. She stuffed the teacher’s face against her bust as she hugged him. “Always so kind and thoughtful, he is. My hero.” 

“Yesssssss,” Snape hissed under his breath. His beetle-black eyes were boring holes through the Slytherin head of house. “What a bloody hero.” 

“Mum, stop,” Harry grumbled as he peeled the petite woman off of his man. “You’re suffocating him.” 

“Yes, suffocate him,” Snape added. 

Having no idea why the Potions teacher was cross at him, Tom straightened up and cocked his head at the front door. “Should I let the gentlemen outside in here?” 

“No!” both Snape and Lily shouted, throwing their hands up to stop him. 

Although loving this interaction, Harry was yet clueless about anything going on between all of these people. He watched his mother take Riddle by the arm while directing Snape to keep him and the rest of the family occupied. She dragged Tom away, up the stairs, and he heard Dudley’s second bedroom door close. He focused back on the others, dying to hear what went on while he was at school all week. “You all look healthy. How did the week go?” 

“Do you like having teeth?” Dudley asked his cousin while he punched the palm of his other hand. “Because it sounds like you want me to knock yours out.” 

“Jeez…” Harry shrugged as he leaned back against the front door, ignoring his father’s shouts for him to open it on the other side. 

Vernon and Marge had gone purple again, and Petunia walked away to finish making lunch. 

* * *

Finally alone together, the ex-Gryffindor Head Girl stopped pacing so she could gather her nerve and confront Professor Riddle and let him know how she felt. “How are you, professor?” 

Tom sighed in defeat as a response. “I’m still a teacher trapped inside Hogwarts for possibly eternity, how do you think I’m doing?” 

Lily smiled. “Always brooding,” she said, shaking her head as she patted the man on the arm. She cupped the upper part instinctively, feeling his muscles tense up under his cardigan. “Ooh, do you work out?” 

Tom reeled back. “What-no! Look, Miss Evans, I…I mean Mrs Potter, I have to confess-” 

“Lily,” she reminded him as she closed the space between them. “Confess away, professor, I’m listening.” 

“I really don’t have time for this.” Having spent minutes on listening to her husband’s whining, Black’s contemptuous looks of disapproval, feeling Snape’s anger resonating through the small Muggle home and now fending off the advances of a woman who’s finally letting her hair down and trying to live life a little more dangerously, Tom’s sanity had been pulled far too thin to be able to suffer through the withdraws from leaving a place he was bound to. Sweat was beading up above his eyebrows while his breathing increased in rapidity. He felt his back collide with the door as Lily rose up on her toes to keep the man’s attention. 

* * *

Snape was pacing around, looking periodically up the steps, waiting for Riddle and the she-Potter to emerge. Before Dudley did any damage to his sweetheart’s offspring, he swept in and pulled Harry out of the entry way so he could confront him in the sitting room. They could hear the Dursleys grumbling as they dispersed to the dining area of the kitchen to eat. Snape moved he and Harry away, to the farthest room from the front door on the first floor.

* * *

The vestiges of any of the remaining wards Riddle had erected outside the Dursley home were successfully stripped away. James Potter burst through the front door. His hazel eyes scanned over the setting. Everything was quiet. Sirius came in second, followed by Peter and Remus. James pointed to the kitchen.” You two go in there. Paddy check the rest of the first floor, I’ll go up there.” His eyes were narrowed on the stairway. His closest companions took off to search while he took the stairs two at a time.

 Always dashing, the now visibly jealous husband pounded on Dudley’s second bedroom door. “Lily?!”

* * *

“It’s okay, Professor Riddle,” she said, giving the man a silly grin. She whipped an index finger to and fro between them. “I know this isn’t going to happen between us. I’ve accepted that a long time ago, and with James’ help with potion making and spending loads of time together I’ve grown to love him very deeply. I just wanted you to know that there is something here, a bond between us. You have a pull, a charisma that exudes confidence and leadership of heights that only maybe Headmaster Dumbledore possesses. You are special, and maybe you already know that but choose not to act upon it. Just gonna say it before I lose my nerve: you should have been Harry’s father, I’ve always thought that.” 

Riddle blinked, letting the chill her words gave him settle in throughout his frame as it slithered down the length of his spine. He shook it off and took her small hands in his. “I would have been honoured to be his father, Lily, but I’m pretty sure you chose the right man.” 

“I thought you’d want me to be with Severus,” she stated, giving off a blushing glow to her cheeks. “I adore Severus, but besides being magical beings - we have little in common.” 

“I can’t make you fall in love with him, as badly as that would clear this whole mess up.” Despite knowing this woman would most likely murder him if she ever found out about he and her son, his heart ached a bit at her radiating affection for the potions professor. “Don’t you worry about Severus. I’m going to help him.” 

“I’d like to help him too,” she said, turning her reddened frown back into a smile. “And I am going to do my part. I’m totally open to meeting with his friends, his peers. I know him better than he does, I’m going to help him find that special someone. He deserves to be happy, too. We all do.”

* * *

“Look, boy,” Severus whispered to Harry, whom he had thrown up against the formal dining-room wall and held him there with a forearm to the throat. “I know what you and Professor Riddle have been up to. I know you’re engaged in an illicit affair with him. I’ll turn a blind eye on that if you tell me how I can get your mother to notice me as someone not in the friend zone.” 

“Why would I do that?” Harry asked him. “That’s exactly where you belong: in the bloody friend zone.” 

“Because, you little prig, I am the only thing that can keep Riddle out of spending the last years of his life serving time in Azkaban for sleeping with you, that’s why.” Snape flipped the thick curtain of hair out of his eyes with a subtle head-flip. 

“That’s extortion!” Harry cried. “I’m not helping you get together with my mum, I happen to like my parents being together. And I won’t let you narc out the professor either!” 

“You’re right: I’m not going to narc him out.” Snape shook his head, already regretting using Riddle as a vice to get what he wanted. “I lied, I won’t get him sacked. I don’t want Professor Riddle sacked either. I actually like him, and I want him to be happy. I only said that to get you to help me.” Seeing that Harry was having his doubts about Snape’s true intentions, he elaborated. “I can prove it. I convinced him to allow your perverted antics to actually happen, boy. And I went to great lengths to keep him in a good place, to keep him from being sacked.” 

“How so?” Harry growled. 

“You’re both tongue-tied, this includes any and all forms of telling anyone about anything untoward the two of you do together. You can’t speak of it, neither can he.” Snape smirked. “That was all me, you can thank me later. He’ll do anything to let this little secret out in order to get sacked, and that includes allowing you to blabber to your peers about it, I’m guessing. I’m not an idiot, I know he’s tried numerous times to confess about the affair to Dumbledore himself.”

“Is that true? He’s just using me to get sacked?” Harry whispered, almost to himself. His heart began to plummet. 

“Yes, it’s true,” Snape chided, but then felt very guilty about crushing the boy’s spirits. “Oh, buck up, Potter. _*sigh*_ I also believe he really fancies you. I’ve never seen him happy before and I believe it’s because of you, as disgusting at that sounds.” 

Harry’s pout turned around. “You really think so?” 

Snape’s expression was mournful. He stood silent for a moment, until the idea of Lily leaving this home with anyone other than him began to boil his blood. “But, little Potter brat, do not forget that I am a true Slytherin. I am cunning, perhaps as cunning as they come. And I don’t like your father, especially him being with your mother. Lily was my girlfriend first - he stole her away from me.”

_“Ugh, are you still whining about Lily not wanting to be with you?”_

Both Snape and Harry turned their heads toward the intrusion. Sirius stepped into the room and hip-checked Severus out of the way so he could remove his Godson from the room. “Get a life, Snivellus. He won her fair and square.” 

Harry pulled away from him, and sneered. “She’s not a prize.” 

Sirius rolled his eyes. “I didn’t mean it like that.” 

The boy’s eyes narrowed, having grown very tired of everyone around him using his beloved mother as a thing to be acquired or wielded like a weapon. “Then how did you mean it?” 

“What’s with the attitude, kid?” Sirius took over where the potions teacher had left off and shoved the boy back up against the wall. “And what’s going on between you and Professor Riddle?” 

“None of your business. I wouldn’t tell you even if I could,” Harry responded. His breathing grew hot and heavy. “Stop thinking of my mum as a trophy - both of you.” He shoved Sirius away and left the room to find Riddle so they could leave. 

* * *

Riddle pulled away from the banged-on door and opened it, and then waved the former Gryffindor Head Boy inside before closing it again. Hardly a matchmaker, the Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher gestured that he was going to take his leave while the couple worked this out on his own. Unfortunately… 

“Oh no you don’t. You’re not going anywhere, professor.” James put his back to the door this time while he snarled at the Slytherin Head of House. “It’s always been you,” he accused. “You think you can hide my wife away from me, that you can just take what you want because you’re so bloody powerful. You always get your way, always get the girl in the end, don’t you?” 

“No, actually I don’t,” Riddle corrected him. He crossed his arms defensively. The calling worked its way around his defencive walls he placed up in his mind. It seemed to be growing in intensity, learning his mindset, understanding how to defeat him. “For one - everyone here is officially cleared of having Dragon Pox. Two - I’m gay, so I have never once sought to ‘get the girl’,” he continued, smirking, “Three - I’ve been trapped in the same dreary civil service position without any hope of escape for over four decades when I’d much rather prefer wreaking havoc on this wretched wizarding world that has so blatantly condemned and turned its back on me. If I,” he blathered, wrapping up this ridiculous word vomiting he felt he needed to get out before someone else cursed him into not being able to speak his mind in any fashion. “Could have my way, all of you would be dead as a doornail. Now, if you’ll both excuse me, I need to beg Snape to forgive me even though I did nothing to incite his hatred, and then return your precious little monster back to school before my god-damned head explodes. You two work this shit out on your own; I’m done here. Good day.” He moved James aside and left the bedroom before with stunned Potter spoke back to him. 

Both Potters watched Riddle stomp out and slam the door behind him. James closed his gaping mouth as he turned back to Lily. “So, um, did you get in any decent rest this week?” 

Lily shook off the dizziness. “Yeah, I’m good. So uh, have you eaten yet?” 

Feeling once more like an awkward teenager, James shrugged shyly. “I could go for something.” 

Lily smiled a bit before giggling aloud. She took his hand in hers. “Well, let’s go get something. Where would you like to go?” 

“No, no, Lily, you pick,” James replied, seeing his wife now as he was meant to see her: an individual, and a truly amazing woman he was so utterly fortunate enough to get to notice him. “Anywhere you want. I just want you to be happy.” 

* * *

**Saturday Evening**

 

Lying on his back, with Tom hovering above him, Harry nibbled on his bottom lip while his master explored the map of his body. He had tried to sit up, to beg Tom to let him pleasure him too, but his master told him, “No, I haven’t finished with you,” in a very stern tone, that drove the boy absolutely crazy with lust. Harry was made to lie there like a good little boy while his master made him feel really good for as long as he wanted to. “Some day, huh?” 

Tom was playing with his pretty pet again and again, giving him orgasm after orgasm, until he was satisfied that his good little boy was taken very good care of, and was completely happy and satiated. “Like no other.” 

It was Saturday night. And Tom had had a helluva day, spending most of it at the Dursleys fighting off Snape from murdering him because he had somehow failed to make Lily Potter fall in love with him again (when she was never too much in love with him in the first place), and fending off Lily from trying to convince the professor that he was “the one”. Then James Potter was all up in his shit, and Riddle just wanted to forget, to do something dastardly that could never be forgiven by them, and doing Harry was exactly what he had in mind. 

And when he finally returned and tried to tamp down the unrest inside of him from ignoring the calling for too long, this naughty boy came to his chambers with a snotty little attitude, telling Tom “You’re not my father!”, making Tom have to remind him that, “Yes, I fucking am your bloody father when we are alone together!”. He had to push his boy against the wall and restrain him by pinning his wrists up over his head while he whispered to him, telling the bad little boy what he thought of him and what he was going to do to him. He was then made to take all of his clothes off, and rip those hindering boy undies off of him so he could kiss, manhandle and suck his sweet cock to make Harry understand once and for all that Lord Voldemort was indeed his daddy. “What a naughty little pussycat you are. You’re mine, my little play thing and I’m going to do whatever I want to you for as long as I want, and you will lay there and be my good little boy while I make you come all over yourself. Won’t you?” 

And Harry melted, submitted and let his master play with him exactly how he had explained to him he would. 

Nothing felt so good as toying with the Potters’ precious only child after a long day of arguing with them, giving Harry everything both parents could never do and would not stand for; corrupting their Golden Boy in the most devious of ways. Between lengthy bouts of tongue-kissing, something both of them could do to the other for hours on end, Tom would massage and finger his boy’s body until he came, and only let him recover for mere minutes before he would start back up again. Riddle would praise him, saying _‘~good boy~_ ’ and ‘ _~my perfect boy~_ ’ over and over in Parseltongue while petting him so gently, lavishing Harry with praise for being such a good little servant. 

“Everyone thinks you’re this perfect little angel, that you’re their Golden Boy, the boy next door…” Tom whispered into Harry’s ear. “But I know the true you, I know what you really are.” 

“I’m a slut,” Harry breathed. He brought his fingers up to caress the man’s cheek. 

“No, no no…” Tom shivered at the gentle caress his love was giving him. “You are not just a slut, puss.” 

 _“~You’re right…you always are,~”_ Harry stressed through practised sibilation. _“~I’m your slut.~”_  

Tom smiled. _“~_ _That’s right, puss, you’re all mine. Only mine.~_ _”_ He pressed their lips together, and forced his tongue inside Harry’s mouth to kiss him while the boy shuddered through his third orgasm. “Your father is such a piece of work,” he told the boy while he shimmied out of his own garments. “Using his influence with the Black family and those rat-faced Pettigrews. I’ve half a mind to cut them all down, rid this world of the lot of them.” 

“Not my father, though. Not Sirius, daddy,” Harry whimpered. Tom climbed on top of him, forcing his legs apart. He sucked in a breathy gasp, watching Lord Voldemort take complete control over his body. “What are you doing?” 

“This body - is mine,” Voldemort said, looking thoughtfully upon Harry. There was no emotion on his face. He pinned the boy down while he prepared him to be fucked. “You love when I take what is mine, I know you do. You also love doing what I say, don’t you?” 

“Yes,” Harry whispered. 

“Yes, what?” Voldemort demanded, smirking. 

“Yes, my beautiful master,” Harry said lovingly. He curled his arms around Riddle’s neck to draw him in closer. “You own me, and you can do anything you want to me.” 

“That’s right, my sweet boy.” Tom snickered as he brushed the fringe out of Harry’s eyes. “Now I request obedience from you. I am going to fuck your tight little arse until I collapse and I want you to do your part for daddy.” With the boy in his arms, with the two of them alone again at last, Tom unleashed the Dark Lord inside him. So possessive he was, this not-really-all-that-Dark Lord he liked to pretend to be. “Stay again tonight. I like waking up with you wrapped around me like a blanket.” 

“I wish I could,” Harry whispered, pouting. “Got this Prefect thing going on tomorrow, though. They get to torture the Head Boy and Girl throughout the day as payback for all the awful things we put them in charge of. I’ll spend tomorrow night with you, I promise.” 

Tom petted him, as if to map out the feel of his face and neck and hold onto that while Harry was away. “Tomorrow night then.” 

Harry nibbled on his bottom lip, looking deeply into Riddle’s eyes while he clung to the man’s neck for dear life while he claimed him. “Oh god,” he breathed, entranced with pleasure, mesmerised by his master’s blazing aura radiating throughout the room. “All the way, right?” he whispered as he arched up to meet Tom’s lips with his own. “To the end?”

“All the way,” Tom replied, with his fingers curling into the boy’s messy hair to kiss him hard and strong. “No matter what happens…we’ll be together to the very end.” 

* * *

**Sunday Evening**

 

 _“~Tom!~”_  

“Huh?” Tom shot up from his bed and centred on Nagini, who was screaming as best as a large serpent could. _“~What is it?~”_  

 _“~Trouble! So much trouble, Tom! The boy…your boy, Harry,~”_ she cried as she curled around him to yank him off of the bed. Her enormous girth dragged him up and out and deposited him on the oriental rug lying on the floor beside it. _“_ _~Grab your wand and head to the forest, where the spiders gather to feed on their prey!~”_

_ _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So this happened. I woke up today, intent on editing the next chapter and my computer screen is broken. I ask the household "Who did this?" and You-Know-Who steps up and takes responsibility...I suppose he's right, maybe I did deserve this.  
> *Truth* I have been very busy, in the middle of getting prepared to adopt Skye, so writing time has been cut to ribbons. I left a BJD eye sitting on my laptop and closed it last night because my husband was going to sleep on the couch because he's starting a new shift at work this week (midnights) and one of my cats slept on my laptop because it's warm and the eye crushed the screen. /sigh another expense to pile onto the others, but life goes on :) I'll get the chapter up very soon, I promise!


	6. The DarkHart's Lilac Mark

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Something very bad has happened to Harry, and the evidence suggests the DarkHarts and their leader, the evil G-Roy, are behind it. Teetering on the edge of life and death, Lord Voldemort, nee Tom Riddle, is given more leash so that he can save him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I haven't been able to find time to comb over this chapter for editing and I fear I've missed many mistakes, but it's far past due to be posted. It's been sitting here gathering dust, so forgive me if you find mistakes. I will comb it over tonight if I get some time.
> 
> Also, I named Blaise Zabini's mother becuase there's no name for her in canon. I gave her a poisonous, wicked personality and named her as such.

**Saturday Evening**  

Harry woke up the abruptly, screaming. Not from a nightmare, but from the bucket of ice water he was doused with. Blaise, Ron, and Ginny; the Weasley-Zabini/Zabini-Weasley siblings; roared with laughter as they plucked the tenured Gryffindor from his bed and carried him out over their heads. 

Being abducted was predictable. The Head Boy relaxed into his role, letting the trio take him deep into the Forbidden Forest, to the place where Draco, Luna and Pansy had taken Hermione. 

Nagini trailed behind, hidden in the brambles. She watched the Prefects prepare their victim in ceremonial garb before affixing him to the spot where they had made a clearing. One of them lagged behind to make the Head Boy drink something contained in a phial they produced, while the other two left to make their way back to the castle. 

Ron looked over both shoulders before he pinched Harry’s nostrils closed so he would loosen his jaw. Harry began to panic, seeing Ron’s normally blue eyes glaze over to milk-white while he struggled to get Harry to ingest the contents of the bottle he had palmed in his hand. “Just drink it, Potter,” he droned, and clamped his hand over the Head Boy’s mouth to keep the liquid inside while he massaged his throat so he would swallow. 

“What’s wrong with you, Ron?” Harry cried once he was able to, but Ron turned on a heel and left the clearing without a word. 

This supposed fun thing the students were doing to Harry did not look like much fun at all. In fact, it looked a bit frightening. More than just a chill travelled through the length of Nagini’s spine; it was worry. “ _~Something isn’t right.~_ ” It was unusually cold weather for that time of year, and cold did not suit the snake one bit. She began to grow sleepy as brumation settled into her body. “ _~_ _I’ve got to tell Tom or the boy will die out here.~”_  

The Prefect leaving the area spotted her, as if he knew she was there the whole time. She shrunk back and tried to escape as he stomped over to her direction, but she was far too sluggish - it was too late. 

The Head Boy growled deep in his chest at his predicament as he fought off the sleeping potion he was forced to drink. His hands were bound over his head, spread out wide between two trees, forcing him into a very uncomfortable standing position. His bare toes barely scraped the earth beneath him. His clothing consisted of a mid length, flowing white evening gown covered in pearls and shimmering lace...and his undies. There was a crude sign nailed to the tree above his head that read: 

VIRGEN SAKRIFISE FOER YEW-NO-HOO 

“Hermione?” He tugged on the ropes but they appeared to be magical, so struggling wouldn't help. The growing pain from dangling was intense. His arms were being stretched out to their limit, muscles straining, with the ropes cutting deeply into the delicate flesh of his wrists. No, struggling only made matters worse. He could see the blood begin to flow from them, creating thin lines of crimson trailing down the length of his forearms. 

"You idiots know I’m not a sodding virgin!" he screamed into the forest as he craned his head back to reread the sign. The taste of bitter poison coated his tongue. The potion he had consumed burned through his veins. He felt…cold. It was too damned cold outside to be hanging around in a frilly dress in the middle of the night; that was for damn sure. 

He had no idea how deep into the forest he was. The darkness around him was thick and choking. Odd sounds twitched his ears every few seconds, driving his anxiety up to an alarming rate. “Hermione, are you out there? Ron?” The evening temperature was slicing into his bare arms and seeping through the soft satin gown, causing him to shiver uncontrollably.

* * *

“ _~Nagini!~”_ Tom huffed as he undressed to go to bed. Potter was not spending the night with him, and his companion, Nagini, was no where to be found. As much as Tom valued his privacy, he had grown fond of curling up with one or both of them while he slept. 

 _“ ~Come on, Nagini, I’ve got a big fat rat here for you!~_ _”_ It was fruitless, nothing he shouted gained the results he was looking for. His head dropped to his chest as he folded his sheets down. There would be a cold sleep tonight.

* * *

 **Saturday - the Middle of the Night**  

Harry's teeth chattered noisily under his pale blue lips. His strength was drained by uncontrolled shivering and trying to hold his weight up on his freezing toes. He had been there for hours, at least it felt that way. His throat was raw from screaming. No one was coming to set him free, they must have forgotten. Dejected and weak, his head slumped softly to his chest. He hung limply from the ropes in order to retain the vestiges of his energy. 

His shallow breath purled down his chest in cloudy puffs of mist. His overly numb fingers clenched into fists over and over to regain any sort of circulation possible, until his muscles stiffened and his exhaustion overcame him. His eyes slowly closed, the shivering slowing, stopping. His mind drifted over thoughts of being found with that ridiculous sign over his head. 

And then it happened: the trees in front of him parted, and a tall figure wearing hooded robes approached him. “Ah, there you are.” He simpered at the boy as he looked him over. “And what a lovely virgin sacrifice you make, Potter.” 

“This is not funny anymore! Cut me down,” Harry managed to croak as the figure closed the distance between them. “It feels like I’m dying.” 

“That’s because you are dying, child.” A hand came up, cupping the sacrifice’s chin to force him to look at him as he lowered his hood. He watched Harry’s eyes grow wide with confusion and fear. He laughed as the boy’s shocked expression heated his frozen blood. 

“You!?”

* * *

**Sunday - Mid Morning**

  
“Gods,” Lily muttered under her breath. She folded her napkin and dropped it in her lap as she watched Bellatrix eat, if you could safely call what she was doing eating. Her new ‘sort of’ sister-in-law was not as cultured as the woman’s younger sister, Narcissa, a fine lady who seemingly mastered the art of pretending horrible things weren’t happening beside her. She was the pretty blond trophy wife of Lucius Malfoy, the hotshot Head-of-the-Auror Office who kept everything in order in wizarding Britain. 

Bellatrix Black had divorced her first husband, Rodolphus Lestrange, to regain her surname and up her status in wizarding Britain. Sirius claimed he was duped, tricked into elopement during a stint of binge drinking. Whether or not he was tricked, Lily firmly believed the binge drinking part one-hundred percent. 

The fourth occupant at the small cafe table was altogether a mystery. The Black Widow, as she was called by many, had not been named as such because of the amount of melanin in her perfect skin nor the sinister glint in her dark eyes, no. It was given to her for the amount of dead husbands she had accumulated over the last two decades. Lily was not positive how many partners Absinthe Zabini had married and lost, but heard that it was a lot. Her latest, and hopefully final husband, Arthur Weasley, was a family friend of the Potters. 

The fifth and sixth attendees at the table were acquaintances of Lily’s, even if both of them had changed so much over the last decade. Molly Weasley was a certified DarkHart, a high-confident and minion of the evil Lord G-Roy. She was serving the man of her dreams, leaving the moment he offered her the position. Alice Longbottom, another of the Dark Lord’s ilk, as incongruous as that seemed to Lily, seemed abnormally twitchy at that moment. 

“So, Molly, Alice, how are things?” Lily asked them, hoping to join the five women surrounding her at the table in a conversation. 

“We’re fantastic,” Molly replied. Once, a motherly housewife of seven, the woman had succumbed to the advances of her current but hopefully-not-permanent boyfriend; the Dark Lord G-Roy. Now, dressed in a full length leather sheath dress with matching witch hat, Molly looked like a saucy wicked witch. Her voluptuous bosom spilt over her bustier, with cleavage pressed so tight Lily thought nothing could squeeze in between, the woman was very much not the motherly type anymore. “G-Roy sends his regards. He says to tell you lot there’s always room in his order for another pretty face.” 

“So what you’re saying is You-Know-Who picks his minions based on their looks alone…Dear Merlin, You’re a glorified army of pageant queens,” Narcissa retorted. She nudged Absinthe, who chuckled in response. 

Alice twitched. “Neville, my son, he’s gone…” 

Bellatrix looked up from her salad, having decided to join in the conversation. “He’s gone what; gone lumpier? Gone more Squibbish? Gone thicker? Spit it out, frumpy!” 

“What did we say about discussing our troubles with these heartless necromancers?” Molly interrupted, breaking her glare on Mrs Malfoy to shun her cohort. 

“We agreed not to,” Alice replied. 

“Right.” Molly glanced back at the others. “Ignore her.” 

“Bella, bite your tongue.” Narcissa turned her head to hide a snort. 

Absinthe, who had no shame in making others feel uncomfortable around her, rolled her eyes at the two DarkHarts. “Honestly, the ginger is right; this is not the setting for talking about missing children. We’re having tea for pity’s sake, not staging a search party.” 

“This was a bad idea,” Lily whispered to herself, wishing she could comfort Alice, but figuring she’d anger someone else at the table if she did. And as if they could read her mind, she felt an arm snake itself around her shoulders and yank her sideways. 

Bellatrix, still trying her best to humiliate Alice, took a moment to smile at the redhead pinned up beside her. “Havin’ fun, sweetie?” 

Lily looked around the table. Everyone, besides Alice, was watching her. She wanted to tell Bellatrix, ‘No, I hate it here! All of you are very strange people, and for the first time in all my years of marriage I regret leaving home’, but she didn’t. Instead, she shrugged, refusing to answer the question. 

“So, Lily dear,” Narcissa butted in, leaning in closer to the ex-Gryffindor and farther away from the DarkHarts, “I’ve been meaning to ask you; does your son and the Head Girl, Hermione Granger, have plans to marry? Are they betrothed?” 

Lily sloughed off Bellatrix and a shiver as she focused on Mrs Malfoy. “No, of course not.” 

“Ooh, so you wouldn’t mind if I set her up with Draco, would you?” 

“Oh, I was going to ask her that,” Absinthe clucked in, now leaning in toward their side of the table, “because she’s a good catch, that one. Blaise and she would make a beautiful couple.” 

“Oh, but Ronald,” Molly piped up, “he’s got a massive crush on her already. I’ve been planning their wedding since their first year.” 

“You abandoned your wedding planning when you joined He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named,” Bellatrix reminded her. 

“One day I’m going to end your life, woman,” Molly retorted. 

“Neville’s quite taken with her too-” 

“That doesn’t matter, Alice, your son is missing. For all we know he’s dead,” Narcissa hissed. “I’m not waiting around for your boy to show up if I can help it. Obviously, everyone who has a son wants a shot at snagging her; wizards and witches of her sort are hard to nail down as it is.” 

“And I did not abandon my children! I joined his side for the greater good!” Molly shouted. “‘Making Everything Fabulous’ is our lord’s motto, you hear - Fabulous! Besides, Harry doesn’t need Hermione. He should marry my daughter, Ginny. They’re perfect for each other, and I’ve been planning their wedding, too.” 

“You mean _my_ daughter, Ginny,” Absinthe corrected her. “And, yes, she would make Harry an excellent wife.” 

Alice slumped in her chair. “You really think Neville might have lost his shot at her?” 

Molly gripped her wand. “Ginny is not your daughter, you black widow!” 

“Ginny calls me ‘mummy’, has been since I took over where you left off,” the current Weasley wife said, and added, “You can still claim Ron as your own, I suppose…he’s a failure as a wizard on every level, if you ask me.” 

“Why is everyone arguing over getting their sons married to Hermione?” Lily asked Narcissa, the woman most interested in nabbing the girl. Although smart and pretty, Hermione was…Hermione. She was a strong, independent witch, a girl who would never depend on a man to fulfil her life’s hopes and dreams. She worked damned hard to be the best she could be. She was certainly not the sort of girl who dreamed of marrying right out of school, only to become some mere trophy wife like these women were. And then there was that other thing. “I thought your folk secretly disliked people with two Muggle parents.” 

And Lily would know; she heard the whispers and saw the finger-pointing from the stronger-blooded students while she attended Hogwarts. Being prejudiced against someone with less than pure blood was a big thing a long time back, that was until Albus Dumbledore conquered Gellert Grindelwald and sent him to prison. Now, it was accepted being a Half-Blood or less, unless you were wealthy. But even their silent dislike for her, she herself, a Muggle-Born, was courted by the best and most wealthy among her classmates. And she had chosen James, despite her best friend Snape’s warning, and her massive crush on Professor Riddle. 

“Honestly, Lily, no offence, but if you’re going to marry off your child to a Mudblood, you might as well snatch up the best,” Narcissa murmured closely, so that Lily could hear her clearly through the banter of the others around them. “Why do you think everyone wanted to marry you? Didn’t you ever wonder why James, a pure-blooded wizard, chose you over Bellatrix or me?” 

The ex-Head Girl’s heart sank. She looked at the Malfoy woman for the first time through questioning eyes, fearful to really hear the reason why. Her throat went dry. “I, I don’t know.” 

The blond took her hand, patting it in sympathy. “Well, besides being very pretty, you were the brightest witch in school, the Head Girl, the pick of the litter, dear. His parents knew you would not tarnish his reputation by doing anything unlady like, nor would you cause a fuss to get your way or become independent. You make James look sympathetic to the masses, to the less-than-pure-blooded wizards, showing them that not only does James care about them - but that they are good enough to marry, and that’s important when one plans a future in politics or society. And that’s why we want to get our hands on that Granger girl, obviously. She would make a lovely trophy at my son’s side.” 

Narcissa continued while Lily's mind began to buzz. “You really should have thought more about this when Harry was younger. We all assumed you had trained him proper so he could capture her heart, as the intelligent ones tend to see through the better-blooded wizards’ intentions.” 

Lily yanked her hand out from Narcissa’s grasp, aghast. “What? That’s not my choice. I’m not even sure of Harry’s sexuality, let alone know whether he ever wants to marry someone in the future or not.” 

Malfoy rolled her eyes. “Who cares what sexual partner he prefers? All he needs to do is choose a girl that will act like a lady, put a few buns in the oven, look like she’s in love with him while they’re in public, and most importantly, stand by his side if he’s ever wrapped up in a scandal.” 

Narcissa retook her hand, unsure of why the Lily has grown cold and distant. “Harry can sleep with whoever he wants to, as long as he keeps it a secret from the media. That boy has so much potential; he could follow in his father’s footsteps and become Minister some day.” She tittered at her naivety as she gestured to every other woman at the table, before returning to look with sadness at the distraught woman. “Oh my goodness, Lily, did you honestly think any of us here loved our husbands when we married them?” 

Lily closed her mouth and slow-nodded in response. Everyone at the table had gone silent, watching her while they waited for her reaction. “Yes…I honestly did.” 

“Oh dear, you poor thing. You’ve come to us just in time.” Narcissa pulled Lily in for a hug. Her eyes roamed over the other’s at the table, and she winked at them, causing smiles of acceptance to grow on each of their faces. “You’re in good hands now, sweetheart.”

* * *

“…You can come in my mouth if you’d like.” 

So radiant, with his eyes looking up in awe at his teacher, large and round, teary, glistening with salty saline that stabbed at his shrivelled heart. Besides being gregarious and a total smoke show, Harry was a miracle, a godsend of brightness that was dropped into Tom’s lap as a gift for the nightmare life he had been punished with. Whether it was to give his lifeless world a breath to revive him or a poisonous kiss to end it all, Tom knew this boy was a blessing. This boy was going to help him achieve his ultimate goal: death. 

“So polite, aren’t you?” 

Ah blessed death, that sweet release from a useless life the man so desired. He need not worry any longer over silly things that seemed to really bother him if he left this cruel world to continue on to the next part, like Nagini. He had no idea who would care for her once he was gone, but no more. Harry, although unable to understand her, could speak to her now, having learnt the snake language, most likely by nicking that book of translations Hermione Granger had written out of his rubbish bin Tom had tossed it in some time back. It was missing when he went back to destroy it properly, and soon after Harry was something of a novice Parselmouth. 

“As polite as one can be mid sucking your big dick.” 

“Oh, and you are so good at it, I must admit.” With his fingers pressed up under Harry’s chin, Tom nestled back and dropped onto the mattress to relax. No sense standing there in an uncomfortable position while one was being blown, having half the fun of this illicit act lost between the balance of pleasure and pain. 

“I love your cock…and these hands. Your fingers are so long. I’m so taken with every part of you.” Those massive bottle-green eyes opened up again while his fingers grazed the backs of the teacher’s hands, the pads tracing the length of each protruding vein. The central heterochromia mutation in his irises appeared to glow under the thick brush of distichiasis-laden eyelashes lining his eyelids. The boy was a living anomaly. He looked so innocent under the dimmed fairy lights humming above the bed. “You can do anything you want to me, you know…I trust you.” 

But you shouldn’t. “I am well aware of that.” A student. He was an underage student. And he was so gullible, so utterly naive. 

Nuzzled into his groin, Harry drew the tip of his tongue up the rigid length of his professor’s prick. His puffy lips were parted for breath, glossed with saliva and precum. “Do you like it?” 

Tom smiled and ruffled his hair before guiding him back into his work. “I love it.” 

“You could have anyone you wanted. Everyone is completely enamoured with you…even my own mother,” Harry managed to say between dipping down over the man’s erection to suck it up like an icy bomb-pop. The boy towed the pad of his thumb up the sensitive underside, tracing the thick vein with it in between swiping it with his tongue. “Why me?” 

“Because you’re not like everyone else,” Tom replied. “I’m not humble enough to hide my knowledge of how special we both are. You’re like me; exceptional. Also, you turn me on like no one else ever has. I love looking at you, watching you touch me, watching you sleep, watching you anything…You’re my angel, sent from heaven to me.” 

Harry snorted. “I’m not an angel, Voldemort.” 

“Trust me,” Tom said. His dark eyes narrowed as he coaxed Harry up to his level so he could taste those sexy lips that seemingly performed miracles for him. Now, so close to his, their lips grazed against the other’s in parted wanton desire. “Harry, you are an angel and don’t you ever let anyone tell you different.” 

Harry curled up on top of him while they kissed, taking great care to keep his master erect and content with whatever part of him he could. He sighed as they broke contact, and then let his head drop onto Tom’s shoulder so that he could suck on his throat. “Whatever you say, gorgeous. I’ll be whatever you want me to be.” 

 _“MURDER!”_  

 **Sunday - Afternoon**  

The romantic bubble housing the daydream over the events that had happened the night before burst inside Tom’s mind. His teeth became bared, his fingernails dug deeply into the cedar desktop. “Are you seriously screaming that word in my office again?!” He scowled as he looked up from the resignation letter he had just scratched a hole through so he could centre it on the woman gawking back at him from the door. “Is this one another attempted murder, or did it finally fucking happen?” 

Sybill cocked her head, confused. “Huh? Did what happen?” 

“Murder,” Tom hissed back, flabbergasted. He threw up a deranged grin as he groped around through his pockets looking for his wand. “Or are you asking me to commit it myself, because I’m very willing to end this stupid thing we’ve got going between us with one simple spell, you bloody creepy pain-in-my-arse Ravenclaw…” 

“NO!” Sybill shouted as she backed out of the room holding her hands up defensively. She peeked back inside, so that Tom could only see her bulging eyes magnified by her outlandish glasses. “They found a body behind a pub in Knockturn Alley this morning. A dead body.”

“So?” Tom rolled his eyes. They were about to find another dead body outside his office door in another minute or so. “People die all the time, professor, even behind pubs. Why do you find it absolutely necessary to scream it at me each time it happens?” 

“It’s the principle. Murder is always a horrible, preventable thing,” she replied. “The body hasn’t been identified yet, but it was riddled with snake bites…no pun intended, I hope.” 

“You mean because it was death by snakebite that you feel the need to shout at me,” Riddle corrected her, sighing. “I get it; you suspect I have something to do with it.” 

“Not just me,” she blurted, and covered her blushing cheeks with her hands as she dared to enter Tom’s office a tiny bit more. “What with that Prefect Longbottom going missing on Friday and with Potter last night, the fear that their disappearances have something in common-” 

“What do you mean?” Tom asked, suddenly pushing away from his desk to stand. His blood turned to ice in his veins while it drained from his vital organs to pool like lead in his feet. “Did you say the boys are missing?” 

“No one can find them. The headmaster isn’t too worried about it, though,” Trelawney replied. 

Tom’s mouth opened a few seconds before he spoke. “How does anyone know they’re missing? I thought there was some sort of hazing thing going on this weekend between the Prefects…” He fought to compose himself while Sybill nodded her head up and down. “…You know, come to think of it, I don’t recall any hazing going on while I was a Prefect or Head Boy…” He looked up at the other teacher and shrugged. “But then again if anyone had tried to touch me back then I’d have just-” 

“Oh, yes, I’m sure that’s what’s happened,” Sybill said with a nod. “Those silly Prefects are always up to something. Besides, they haven’t even identified the gender of the body yet, it’s far too torn up to-” 

“In Knockturn Alley, you say?” Tom asked her, having felt a twinge of unease overcome his annoyance of being interrupted and accused of murder. “I can’t see how either student would find themselves there to begin with.” He moved to leave, pushing past her, needing to find Dumbledore to speak with him about something other than quitting for the first time in decades. He paused, glancing at Sybill for a moment. “If you hear anything else let me know.” 

“Oh yes, Professor Riddle, of course I will,” she replied. She clapped her own cheek, baffled, as he disappeared down the hallway. “How queer, I had no idea he cared about students.”

* * *

Minerva shook her head as she patted Riddle on the shoulder while the headmaster listened to the man’s tale of Sybill’s accusations about the discovery of a corpse in Knockturn Alley. “The woman has predicted many, many, many things that have never come to pass,” she told him, adding to Dumbledore’s assurance that Harry was perfectly fine, probably being held captive by fellow Prefects out in the forest and would be released in time for dinner. “She has predicted a death of a student every year during her tenure and not a one of them has died. Her predictions are ridiculous, and I’m a bit surprised that you, of all people, Tom, could fall victim to her silly attempts to stay relevant.” 

“I am no victim,” Tom hissed. He tried to rise from his seat by Minerva clamped down on him to keep him there. 

“We go through this often, Tom,” Albus said through a sad smile. “This isn’t the first time you’ve barged in here fearing that young Harry was in danger.” 

“No, that’s not right,” Tom said, tipping his head to the side like a confused puppy. “This is the very first time I’ve barged in here for fear that Harry was-” 

“Minerva dear, wipe Tom’s memory of the Potter boy again,” the headmaster ordered, looking up at the Transfiguration teacher. 

Tom blinked, stunned. “What did you say? Wipe my-”

“On it,” McGonagall replied, and wiped the professor’s memory of Harry Potter, as she did each and every time the headmaster instructed her to. Both of them caught the man as he slumped in his seat, and carried him over to the settee beside the chamber door. Like a worried nanny, Minerva brushed the fringe from Riddle’s forehead before patting his cheek to wake him, but her eyes were set and narrowed on the headmaster. 

“That batty woman will be the death of him, Albus. She has put too many wicked thoughts in his head to begin with. Imagine, letting him think he’s some sort of Dark Lord rising, and that poor little Harry is this nemesis, a rival that can defeat him. Now she’s telling him that the boy may have been murdered- and by him of all people.” She stomped a foot on the floor. “Are you going to finally do something about her, or shall I?” 

“I will speak with her again, Minerva,” Albus replied, sighing. He moved toward the fireplace so he could summon Snape up to his chambers to escort the Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher back to his room for some much needed rest. 

“Tom’s getting worse. Look at him, Albus; he’s as thin as a rail, as pale as a ghost.” She knelt beside him, patting his hand as he roused from his stupor. “Tom, wake up. Wake up now, you’ve fainted.” 

“I fainted?” Tom rubbed the nape of his neck as he sat up on the settee. He looked around the room and saw Snape enter and speak with Dumbledore. “In here? How did I get here? This is peculiar.” 

Minerva helped him stand. “Take it easy. You look peaked, go down to your room and have a cup of tea and a nap.” 

Severus took Tom by the arm and helped him off the settee. “Yes, I’ll take him back. Thank you, Minerva.” 

Albus and Minerva watched them leave. Tom was distraught, confused as to how he had gotten there and why he had fainted. Quirines Quirrell and Filius Flitwick watched the Slytherins pass. Both of them snarled as they looked at the other.

* * *

 **Sunday - Evening**  

It was yet early, the sun had just set and darkness rose up to blanket the grounds of Hogwarts in its embrace. Nagini combed over the forest for any signs of the boy. Having woken up with a risen lump on her head, it took her a moment to recall what had caused her unconscious state, making her lose sight of the child she had been put in charge of watching. Slowly, it came to her as she slithered down an embankment and coiled up around the trunk of a tree to watch a clutter of giant spiders wrapping something up in their gossamer. 

Draglines of silk swayed overhead from the branches in the breeze. Whatever it was they had captured was not putting up much of a fight. She climbed higher in the tree, careful to not trip any of the webbing woven through it, to catch a closer look at what was for dinner that night. 

Something above them lit up the sky. The mark of the Dark Lord illuminated the immediate area, soaring upward to explode like fireworks for everyone in the castle to see. The face of Gilderoy Lockhart grinned evilly down at the scene in vivid lilac, giving the cold-blooded creature a chill that crawled through the length of her body. She then knew what it was the spiders were crushing within their silk: Harry Potter. “ _~Oh Merlin- No!~_ ”

* * *

  _“~Where have you been? I was looking everywhere for you!~”_ Tom said as he struggled to free himself from the coils of the snake who had suddenly ensnared him. He had been woken up abruptly through the screaming and her coils squeezing him alert. They fell out of his bed in a heap. _“~What are you on about, Nagini? Who is this Harry you speak of, and why is he in trouble?~”_  

 _“~Have they wiped your memory of him again!? Oh, Tom, think!~”_ Nagini cried. She flicked her tongue at his wand, knocking it off of the night table so it landed in his lap. She then coiled around his leg, dragging him toward the wardrobe. _“~Grab your shoes and get out there before it’s too late! It might already be too late, I just don’t know…~”_  

Tom slipped his loafers on, grabbed his robes, shoved his wand in his boxers and ran to the door. _“~Show me,~”_ he said, mustering up the anxiety needed to make this journey faster. _“~Harry, Harry…he’s uh…my…lover…I love him?~”_  

Nagini would have shrugged at him if she had shoulders. _“~Maybe? I don’t know if it’s truly love, but it’s something quite positive. It’s something that makes you very happy, Tom, and I want you to stay happy, I want you to stay being Tom,~”_ she told him as they raced up to the ground floor. 

 _“~Potter,~”_ Tom breathed, as his mind cleared and the image of the boy emerged from within his addled mind. They could never wipe him away, not fully, and never for very long. _“~I knew it! He was in danger…I was supposed to protect him from - some thing’s happened!~”_  

 _“~Keep your composure!~”_  

The darkness lifted as the oddly disturbing lilac image of Lockhart’s face blazed bright in the sky. The man was grinning, hamming it up for whatever he had used to project his likeness into the curse. 

Severus Snape and Poppy Pomfrey came up from behind to follow the professor into the forest, having spotted the gruesomely handsome visage themselves from inside the castle. 

Soon, Albus and Minerva were running toward them, but none of them could catch up to Tom, for none of them knew of the horror he was preparing himself to discover. 

As if they did not exist, Tom b-lined through the cluster of spiders toward the middle, honing in on the object they were carrying back to their lair. He cursed them, and summoned the inviscated victim back to him. 

Rubeus Hagrid was there now, shooing away the feistier spiders still willing to fight to keep their prey. Albus, Minerva, Poppy and Severus stunned any remaining beasts left as Tom dropped to his knees with the swaddling in his arms. _“Diffindo!”_  

Poppy and Minerva gasped, both covering their gaping mouths with the tips of their fingers. 

Severus cringed and looked away. 

Albus’ head dropped to his chest in sadness. “Oh, Tom, you were right. I should have listened to you…” 

The broken body of the Head Boy lie motionless as Tom tore the silk away from his body. He was unresponsive and cold to the touch. The Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher held Harry’s stiff body to his chest for warmth, and screamed in vehemence. His angel, his light in the darkness… 

“He’s not dead yet!” Snape noted quickly, seeing mist purl out through the boy’s nostrils. 

But he was close. Harry was ever close to death, barely registering a pulse or heartbeat. He was littered with puncture wounds; his skin ashen and blue. 

Albus cast several warming spells while Poppy shocked the boy’s heart to restart it. Severus summoned several potions, and Minerva began funnelling them down the boy’s throat. 

“I can stop death…” Tom murmured in realisation, as he lowered Harry down to the forest floor. He gaped up at the others with wide eyes. “Wait, don’t warm him up too much yet- I can save him!” 

Soon after, he began reciting something in Parseltongue with his eyes closed, focusing his magic on Harry’s mind to preserve it from deterioration from lack of oxygen. “Hang in there with me, kid,” he said when it was done, desperate. “This is not the end, not even close. Don’t you dare let go.” He clutched him tighter and began whispering a new incantation in Harry’s ear while he flickered his wand to keep his chilled blood flowing, sustaining what remaining life was left, enough to get the boy back to the castle. 

Nagini coiled around them both, constricting them as one. Her head fell onto Tom’s shoulder so she could whisper to him to keep him going, motivated and alert as he needed to be to keep this channel between he and the boy clear and open. 

If you had thought Madam Pomfrey, of all of the adults standing there, knew the most about preserving life and understanding death - well, you would be wrong. In fact, there was only one among the whole wizarding world who knew more about all things living and dead, and he just so happened to be there holding the dying child in his arms. Tom Riddle had obsessed over immortality for decades, and over death during the last ten years of this shackled life. He was practically a master of both, having studied up and experimented with the best and worst types of magic in existence, to learn all of its secrets. 

“Help me get him back to the castle,” Tom commanded, briefly looking up at the others. Harry and Nagini were far too heavy to carry on his own. He remained as calm as he could, focusing any time now only on sustaining Harry’s young life long enough to find a way to reverse the extensive damage that had been done to him. 

“Yes, of course,” Albus said, breaking out of his stupor. He gestured for the others to lead the way, and moved in next to Tom to levitate the boy out of Tom’s arms. Nagini reared back with a hiss, baring her fangs. 

“No, I must not break skin contact, Albus,” Tom told him, shaking his head. “I’m the only thing keeping his heart beating right now. I don’t care that you do not condone this sort of magic…he’s still alive, I won’t let him die.” He jerked his head at the potions teacher. “Severus, get over here, make sure nothing comes between us.” 

Tom cupped his hands behind the boy’s neck and knees. He stood up with Albus’ and Severus’ help. Harry weighed practically nothing in his arms. The poor child was struggling to breathe. The teacher set his jaw as he tore his worried gaze away from him to look his peers. “We have to get him to the hospital wing immediately.” The boy’s limp arm dangled beneath him as Tom trudged back to the castle through the forest. The image of Lockhart had faded, dousing the area back to darkness.

* * *

“Back away, all of you!” McGonagall shouted, shooing the throng of students that had gathered in the Great Hall to see what had happened. 

Hermione gasped in horror as Riddle passed by, seeing him carrying her best friend in his arms, heading off toward the hospital wing. Her Head of House took her by the arm before she could follow. “Gather up all the Prefects and meet me in my classroom immediately, Miss Granger.” 

“Yes, ma’am,” she replied with a nod. She wiped her newly forming tears away and took a deep breath to calm herself down. “Prefects,” she shouted, holding her wand up to the side of her mouth in order to amplify her voice. “All of you to middle courtyard straight away. Greengrass, Creevey, Finch-Fletchley and Patil; get your houses in order, return the students to their common rooms. I’m leaving you four in charge of your own.”

* * *

Once thought of as a harmless boaster, now, it seemed, the wicked Lord G-Roy was far worse than anyone had imagined. 

“How could he do this to a child?” 

“Why? Why would he hurt the boy!?” 

“He claimed that Harry was the one mentioned in that ridiculous prophesy Trelawney spouted out long ago! And Longbottom! Neville Longbottom is still missing!” 

“Oh Merlin, what if he’s dead? Didn’t someone say the Aurors found a body in Knockturn Alley?” 

“Oh gods, has anyone gotten hold of the Potters or the Longbottoms? They need to be notified!” 

“I need silence out here!” Snape hissed at all of the teachers that had gathered outside of the hospital wing. “Someone get hold of Lily this minute. She needs to be here, in case…” He trailed off at the thought of his best friend mourning the loss of her only son. He had promised to protect him, and he was certain Tom was watching out for Harry, too. But both of them failed. “Just get a hold of her.”

* * *

“You all need to understand that I am the only one among you who can not only sustain his fragile existance, but I can really bring him back, to live a long fulfilling life.” Tears leaked down Tom’s face in frustration. He could not bear to look at Harry’s mother and father in the eye, knowing how badly he had broken the holy mother of all rules any teacher could break with a student, but he had to; he needed their blessing in order to truly save the boy’s withering life. Living would mean nothing any longer if Harry died, he was the only thing Tom had left to cling to. “But I can’t all the same.” 

“Just do it!” Lily shouted, rising from her seat. “Why won’t you save him?!” 

James eased her back down and hugged her, but his eyes were on Tom. “Bring him back, professor, please.” 

Sirius was weeping, with his face buried in his hands. “Please, professor, if you can do this…”

  
“I don’t have the…I can’t, not like this. I’ve tried everything, but nothing’s worked right.” Seeing the pained stares of Harry’s loved ones gaping at him, Tom elaborated. "You see, I’m shackled to this form, to servitude with magic dampening cuffs. My power is stunted, there are limits…” Tom fell to his knees, completely wiped of energy. His will to live, once low, had plummeted to rock bottom. His head fell to his chest. “I want to save him, I swear to Merlin…If only I could be given the chance to prove it to you, Lily.” 

Lily’s heart skipped a beat. She pulled away from James and dropped to her knees in front of Tom to comfort him. She hugged him, weeping. “What’ll it take?” she whispered to him. “Tell me how to unshackle you, Professor Riddle.” 

“I wish I could help,” Remus said unconsciously. “I could try and turn him, try something…Oh, Merlin, Harry.” 

Peter wrapped his arms around his friend. 

Tom clutched onto Lily, needing her words, her support to fight this dominance of heartache overwhelming his primal will to live. “I won’t stop trying, Lily. I can promise you that.” 

Snape moved to his side to comfort him, as well. His beetle-black eyes narrowed on the headmaster while he hugged Tom and Lily as one. It was killing him to see his two favourite people in the world burdened with such sorrow. “Give him more slack, Albus. Let him save the boy.” 

Minerva sighed. She took the headmaster’s hand and gave it a squeeze. “Perhaps we should, even temporarily.” 

Remus stammered. His throat closed up. Peter bellowed in sadness.

Sirius clamped on to his best mate to keep him grounded. “Dumbledore can loosen the magic? Then loosen it!” 

“If you can do something, Albus, why aren’t you?” Lily cried. Tears streamed down James’ cheeks in rivets. 

A lament from the students bellowed throughout the school. Moaning Myrtle sobbed on Nearly Headless Nick’s shoulder. Peeves the Poltergeist nibbled on his fingernails, unsure of why the gleeful demeanour of the castle had shifted so drastically. Hagrid had collapsed on the floor, unable to keep himself upright. 

The near demise of the most popular and beloved student that Hogwarts had seen in a century was quite literally crushing all of their spirits. Harry Potter was special to them, he represented a unity between pure-bloods and Muggle-borns. He was going to be an Auror, and he would probably become the Minister of Magic some day. He was their bright shining star, proof that being a witch or wizard was an extraordinary thing. Even the man he taunted relentlessly over the last seven years appeared to be devastated by his loss. 

The balance of good versus evil was out of whack. Turning Tom Riddle into a teacher and denying him the spot in their world niched out for him had been a mistake. G-Roy and his DarkHarts were hardly a force to be reckoned with. The group was the pure definition of idiocy. The one time their leader had ever accomplished an act of pure evil, he had single-handedly wiped out the happiness in their world, as their world was soft. The inhabitants very used to being in a good, safe place without fear of anything. No one could have prepared for this. 

Albus stood up from his seat. “Clear the room.” Everyone stood up to leave. “Severus, Minerva, I require your assistance.” Albus reached out and took Riddle’s hand before he left. “And you, Tom. You stay here with me.”

* * *

“I really hoped it would never come to this.” 

“Too bad, so sad, shut up. Whine about this in your head, Dumbledore. Now, the rest of you listen to my words.” 

Standing tall in the anti-chamber accompanying the hospital wing, the Dark Lord Voldemort scanned over the brood of mourners that were now cowering in his presence. White as a skull, the snake-like visage of evil smiled with glee, showing off all of his pointed teeth. “I want a contract from you two,” he said, narrowing his eyes at the boy’s parents. 

“What does that mean?” James asked, perking up from his seat while Lily began to cry again. 

“If I am to perform this daunting task, a thing that will damn-near kill me in the process, I demand payment,” Voldemort informed them. 

Lily blinked back her tears. “What do you want?” 

Voldemort tipped his head. “The boy.” 

“You want _what!?_ ” James cried as he got to his feet. Sirius and Remus took hold of him as he stomped over to the Dark Lord to kill him. 

“You will both be indebted to me for life. It will be a misery neither of you will walk away from unscathed. But I can be kind, I am a giving governor. What I want for payment is the boy. Give him to me free and clear and I will release you both.” Voldemort shrugged nonchalantly. “Then you’re free to make another child or something, whatever.” 

“You’re mad!” Lily screamed. 

And as the crowd grew fierce, the Dark Lord smiled again as he held up a hand. “Let me clarify,” he said through a high-pitched laugh. “I wish no harm on the boy, I merely want to reign over him. I will control his fate, his destiny. I want an unbreakable assurance that he can never defeat me.” 

Everyone stopped. There was an extended pause that doused the room into silence. 

Voldemort stared at his fingernails while they sorted out what he meant. 

“And he can still attend school?” 

“Yes, of course.” 

“And grow up and get married?” 

“I wouldn’t step in the way.” 

Lily pushed through the crowd of friends to look upon the man, face to face. “Promise me he can live his life any way he wants to.” 

“As long as he’s not trying to kill me,” Voldemort replied. 

“That’s it?” 

The Dark Lord took her hand and kissed the back of it. “Yes, my dear, that is all I ask.” 

Albus stepped up beside the woman. “Lily, I don’t think-” 

“I’ll do it,” Lily replied, allowing Voldemort to keep her hand in his grasp. “James, get over here,” she said firmly. 

Voldemort clasped both parents’ right wrists, and they his as all three knelt down in the centre of the room. “Severus,” Voldemort said softly. “Will you do the honours?” 

Snape swallowed any shame for finding this new form of his friend fascinating. He held up his wand as he reached them. “At your will, my Lord.” 

The Potters ignored the jeers and warnings. Flaming wire began to encircle their hands, bonding the three together as one. “And you both accept these terms I have presented to you: Harry Potter will become my ward, he will serve me as his one and only keeper. And for this I will restore and preserve his precious existance so that he can finish growing and live a long and happy life.” 

“We do,” Lily and James said as one. “We relinquish our parentage, our custody, our protection and safekeeping of our only son, Harry Potter, to you, Lord Voldemort, for your promise to restore and preserve his precious life.” 

If ever a grin could practically tear a face open, Lord Voldemort was surely sporting one at that very moment. “That is all,” he responded to Snape, so he could complete the spell that set the Unbreakable Vow in stone. 

And when it was done, it was not James who Lily ran to to cry on his shoulder; it was Snape. 

Bellatrix, now standing beside her husband, slapped the future Minister of Magic’s arm while she cackled. “Heh, I think she just dumped your Pure-Blooded arse.” 

James opened his mouth to speak but Voldemort snapped his fingers in his face to garner his attention. “Now, where were we?” From memory, he began reciting the things he needed to bring Harry back to the way he was before the attack. “Pay close attention, these ingredients are not currently stocked in our stores: tears of a Phoenix, either the tooth from a werewolf or an Animagus, an eye of a basilisk, Nagini’s venom…and the heart of that wretched spider, Aragog, the leader of those beasts who paralysed Harry,” he told them, with his eyes mere slits as he looked upon Hagrid, and added, “…just because I want to crush it in my fist in front of you for keeping it alive this long.” 

“Now, Tom,” Albus said, standing, until a unknown force shoved him back down into his chair. Everyone in the room inhaled a startled breath as the man they once thought of as harmless showed them his true identity. 

“There is no Tom Riddle any more, people,” he told them in a cold voice. “Let me properly introduce myself; I am Lord Voldemort. None of you have met me but I know all of you.” His blood-shot dark eyes now glowed bright red, while the pupils were segmented like the slits of Nagini’s. 

This was the creature, Riddle’s spectral soul who had possessed Nagini back in Albania nearly two decades ago while it roamed the earth, having been blocked from inhabiting his own body when the curse of Hogwarts took hold of him. He was once more whole, a beautiful thing to fear and admire, his tortured torn soul was at last put back together. 

Remus stepped forward to offer his tooth but Minerva put her hand out to stop him. “I am a registered Animagus. I will provide the tooth.” 

“Excellent,” Voldemort replied without looking up from his work. “Now get the rest of the things and meet back here before sunup if you wish me to keep this boy alive. Remember, failure to retain his life will surely kill both of the Potters.” 

Lily shuddered, and looked back at her husband. “This was a bad idea,” she whispered, while she listened to Voldemort explain how he would repair their damaged son. “A terrible idea, we’ve made a mistake.” 

“If it’ll keep Harry alive it’s worth it,” James whispered back. 

She kissed Snape’s cheek as thanks as he said his good-byes in order to go hunting for ingredients, and rejoined her husband’s side. 

Voldemort looked upon the gathering of concerned loved ones just standing there gawking back at him. This infuriated him. “Do you want the boy to live or die?” he asked them in the most serious of voices. 

Harry’s parents, along with his Godfather, his parents’ friends, and all of the teachers and Prefects standing beside the Head Girl all mumbled “live”. 

The Dark Lord bared his teeth at them. “Then get those things I asked for. I don’t care how. If they are not gathered by midnight tonight I will be forced to take more drastic measures to preserve mine and the Potter’s lives, measures which may or may not lead to turning the boy into a mindless Inferi. Do not let it come to this.” 

McGonagall paled. “But a basilisk is a mythical creature, Lord…err whatitsname. How can we get you an eye if-” 

“Leave the basilisk eye and Nagini’s venom to me,” Voldemort replied smugly. He centred on Lily soon after, his errant gaze drifting from her face downward to her chest. She gasped as he suddenly moved toward her, unsure of his intentions. “Is this made of solid gold?” 

She looked down, seeing Voldemort’s unusually long fingers wrapped around the braided chain fastened around her neck. “Yes, it was-” 

“Good, I need it,” he said, and ripped it from her neck. 

“…my mother’s,” she finished, but the scary Dark Lord turned around and walked away before she said it. James pulled her into his arms and hugged her, seeing the last of her bravery flit away. Selfishly, she clung to him for support, pushing the plans she had made; to withdraw Harry from Hogwarts, to leave James and the wizarding world altogether for good; in the back of her mind. If only she had acted sooner…

**Author's Note:**

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